


A Ship Called The Scythian

by raven_aorla



Category: Firefly, Serenity (2005), The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Humor, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Custody Battle, Drama, Eventual Happy Ending, F/M, Families of Choice, Fix-It, Future Fic, Gen, Homophobia, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mental Health Issues, More Like Custody Negotiation, Platonic Cuddling, Self-Harm, Temporary Character Death, Therapy, Unethical Experimentation, the homophobia is from Jayne and gets called out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-07 03:20:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 29,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26330050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raven_aorla/pseuds/raven_aorla
Summary: Over 500 years since the last immortal was called, a teenage girl dies during unethical experimental surgery. She comes back to life.About fifteen months later, a ship calledThe ScythiananswersSerenity'sdistress call about needing a new part to fix their broken-down engine.
Relationships: Hoban Washburne/Zoë Washburne, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Kaylee Frye/Simon Tam, Malcolm Reynolds & Zoë Washburne, River Tam & Simon Tam
Comments: 100
Kudos: 211





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Someone please save me from crossover fever. Translations for occasional non-English phrases are at the end, though I hope they make sense in context regardless.

Alone and slowly dying, Mal drifted off in the pilot’s chair, wrapping in a blanket and hoping that someone would answer his ship’s distress signal. There was cold comfort in the thought of dying here, in the home he’d made for himself. He tried hard not to think about the fate of his crew.

He woke with a start at a staticky sound. A female voice. “Firefly, do you copy? This is the captain of _The Scythian_ , we’re prepared to offer assistance…”

A few negotiations later, Mal was taking deep gulps of oxygen as _The Scythian_ docked with _Serenity_ and five people appeared. The captain was a young woman with a thoughtful look to her, along with dark skin and a military bearing. She had a gun on her hip, but had her hands up in a peaceable gesture. Another young woman, with a black braid coiled into a bun and a face that suggested Chinese or similar heritage, was holding the part _Serenity’s_ engine needed. She was unarmed as far as Mal could tell The three men all looked older than them, if not necessarily by much. A pale, wiry fella with bright blue-green eyes and a beaky nose was standing close to a slightly taller, significantly tanner fella who was the only one actually smiling at Mal. Neither of them seemed to have guns on them, but both had gorram _swords_ for some bizarre reason strapped to their backs. A long straight one and a shorter curved one, respectively. The last man, palest of all and scruffy, had a bit of a slump to his spine and looked somber and wary, with a barely visible lump that suggested he had a concealed shoulder holster under his brown coat. They wore different styles of clothes but they all had the ragtag look common among regular folk of the outer planets, and there was an awful lot of brown. The sword duo had _ke ai_ matching brown leather jackets, even. 

“Captain Reynolds, I’m Nile Freeman, and we’re happy to help you get your engine working again. Jing Mei here is our mechanic.” Freeman smiled pleasantly, but there was a hint of nerves to it.

Mal suspected his expression was the same. Just ‘cause folk had the appearance of Browncoats didn’t mean they’d be cuddly. “I appreciate that, but if it’s all the same to you, I’d prefer to give you a fair payment for the part and handle that myself. No need to take up any more of your time.”

“It’s no trouble,” Jing Mei said earnestly.

“I understand. I would still strongly prefer that we go our own ways.” Mal wanted to call his people back as soon as possible, and he didn’t want to expose them to strangers who might have ulterior motives.

“There’s no good way to broach the topic slowly,” Shoulder Holster told Freeman, sounding exhausted to the bone despite nothing having happened yet. 

Curved Sword murmured something to Jing Mei, and she promptly gave him the catalyzer and retreated back into her own ship. Sending away the only unarmed member of the group was a bit of a red flag, in Mal’s estimation.

Freeman sighed. “Look, Captain, this might sound strange, but we don’t want money from you. We want a chance to talk to you and your crew. We were in the area because we were trying to figure out how to introduce ourselves.”

“We don’t mean any of you any harm,” Shoulder Holster added.

Curved Sword said something in a language Mal didn’t recognize, and Long Sword responded the same way. Mal was beginning to wonder if Long Sword spoke English or _putonghua_ at all, but his rising suspicions were more important. 

What happened next was a bit of a blur. Mal got more emphatic and less polite about them getting off his ship. They got more emphatic and less polite about their need to stay on the ship to talk about something, but were cagey about exactly what that was. Then Shoulder Holster surged forward to try to disarm Mal, possibly subdue him, and in the heat of the moment Mal shot him in the head.

Once he realized what he’d done, he fully expected the situation to escalate. But the crew of _The Scythian_ didn’t seem to be anything more than exasperated, the way one might be if a job didn’t go smooth but still wasn’t complete ruin. Long Sword crouched down to get a better look at his dead cohort as if he was just wounded, and Freeman and Curved Sword teamed up to get Mal zip tied hand and foot while hurting him as little as possible.

“We’re really sorry about this, but we’ve been trying too hard for too long to give up now,” Freeman said. 

“Nile, he’s going to see,” Curved Sword hissed, but it was too late. Mal might not have been able to avoid getting tied up, but he sat up in time to see something that shook him to the core.

The pullet Mal had put in Shoulder Holster’s brainpan was now burrowing back out of his skull like a rat tunneling out of dirt. The moment it was gone, his eyes flew open and he gasped. Long Sword squeezed one of his hands and said something like, “ _Tu n’es pas seul_ ” multiple times. And helped him to his feet again. 

“What are you people?” Mal asked, once he’d retrieved his jaw from the floor.

Freeman rubbed the back of her neck. “Ugh, fine, I guess this is one of those days. We’re a group of immortals, and we’ve been trying to find the newest one of us.”

After five seconds to process this, Mal asked the most important question despite the dozens more crowding his head. “And you think there’s one hiding in my crew?”

“We know there is,” Long Sword said, looking almost sad about it. So he could speak English after all.

“No hard feelings, by the way, I’d have panicked too,” Shoulder Holster said. “Let’s have Joe give the full spiel. He makes it sound nice.”

They untied Mal once they were convinced he wasn’t going to try anything, and marched him to the engine room to get _Serenity_ going again. Then they marched him to the bridge and “encouraged” him to take a seat in the pilot’s chair. Freeman pressed the button to call back the shuttles.

“If anything bad happens to any of them, I will find a way to hurt you that’ll stick,” Mal told Freeman, looking her in the eyes.

“Good,” she said calmly. “Let’s do introductions. We normally wouldn’t do this except for the actual person we’re here to recruit, but we’ve done enough research to realize that we’re not gonna be able to do that without bloodshed unless we fill you in, too.” 

Shoulder Holster added, “We don’t think you’re the type of person to sell us out - trust me, I’m an expert - but if you turn out to be, we know enough about _Serenity’s_ activities for mutually assured destruction.”

At Mal’s understanding nod, Freeman continued slowly, “I’m Nile Freeman, captain of _The Scythian_. I was born in 1994.”

“You’re more than five hundred years old?”

Freeman shrugged. Shoulder Holster chuckled. “I hate to tell you this, but she’s the baby. I’m the pilot and logistics specialist of _The Scythian_ , and I was born in 1770. I go by Seb these days. And if you think that’s bad...”

“ _Bukeneng!_ ” 

“There was a time when each of us thought it was impossible, too.” Curved Sword settled into the copilot’s chair. “If we’re doing this by increasing age, my husband should go next.”

Long Sword leaned against the chair and snorted. “Ah yes, such a difference. Nicky, born 1069. First mate and ship’s counselor.”

“Joe, born 1066. First mate and accountant. What? I’m good at math and the others are terrible.” He got a faraway look. “I remember explaining to Nicolo the concept of zero…”

There was no time to unpack that. “Wasn’t my object of confusion. How are you both first mate?”

“It was better to just go with it,” Freeman said, with the slightest roll of eyes.

“What about your mechanic? Is she old pals with Jesus?”

Joe laughed. “No, we have this policy now of maintaining one mortal ally to help us keep up with changes in technology and society. She isn’t just a mechanic but an excellent hacker. Helped us learn about you and your first mate. You see, Captain, we’ve lived a very long time, and we’ve spent that time trying to do as much good as we can. You can also imagine that we are in considerable danger from people who would either fear us or seek to profit from us. Our new comrade is the first to be called to this life since humanity left Earth-That-Was, and it is our duty to find her and keep her safe as well as help her find her destiny. What you’ve done for River is truly noble and worthy of the highest respect, but you are equipped to fight neither her internal demons nor her external enemies.”

Mal felt a headache coming on, partly because of how incredibly accurate that last sentence was. “First off, you’re going to have a rougher time than usual with recruitment. Second off, her brother is going to pitch a fit.”

“But are you going to help us?” Freeman asked.

“I’m going to help you talk to her, whatever good that does, and her brother because she’s a minor. Along with the aforementioned fit-pitching. Whatever their decision is, you have to respect that. And you have to let me include my first mate in this. No spooking the Tams too much at first. It’s always a hassle and a half getting the doc to settle down.”

“Fair,” Freeman said, and extended a hand to shake. 

****

_Fifteen months earlier_

Seb - not Booker for a long time now, as he’d wanted to leave what he’d done under that name behind - woke up in a cold sweat and immediately made his way to the common area. He found Nile, Nicky, and Joe already there, and Joe already sketching.

“After five hundred years, I get to feel another girl die,” Seb said, dazed and taking a seat. Nile gave him a pat on the shoulder and Joe paused to flash him a soft smile. After his exile ended, he’d found himself not only forgiven but the subject of a new campaign of constant, reassuring gestures of affection. While not overdoing it - usually - he other three had taken to paying more attention to his moods, encouraging him, touching him, and whenever feasible greeting him the moment he came back to life. It helped with that brief flash of disappointment each time. Life wasn’t easy, especially without Andy and after the strange period that had been Quynh crashing back into their lives for a time, but he didn’t feel as alone and underappreciated as he used to. It was more humbling than the initial punishment had ever been.

“The youngest immortal yet, definitely a teenager." Nicky wasn’t much of an artist, but he was writing down his observations and conjectures in small, neat letters in a notebook. He looked placid, but he had a white-knuckled grip on his pen. “I saw a surgical theater. They were operating on her brain and they cut too far. We must find her. She was conscious. Conscious, _madre di Dio_. But when she died and came back to life, when her brain began to reshape and undo what they’d done, they just documented it and kept cutting. They knew they’d killed her and they kept fucking cutting. ”

The idea of an immortal first finding her immortality while _already_ in the clutches of cruel scientists was like a punch to Seb’s gut and what embers of guilt and shame still remained. He felt like saying so now would constitute distracting everyone from the main task at hand, as well as being what Nile would call a ‘drama queen’. “What did you see, Nile?”

Her hands were clutched around a mug of shitty synthesized coffee, and she squeezed it shut. “I heard them talking. It wasn’t her first surgery, it was just the first one that killed her. They’re trying to get ‘results’ of some kind. They used a name. I think it’s a last name...I think...Tam. That’s her last name.”

Seb made coffee for himself - wishing, yet again, that he could splash some liquor in without having to break his best sobriety streak so far - and mint tea for Joe and Nicky. They grew their own little mint plants in their sunlamp-lit herb garden and dried the leaves for this very purpose. When he was done, Joe had produced a sketch of Ms. Tam’s face. His eyes were damp and he accepted the tea without a word, leaning into Nicky for solace.

“We’re still gonna hijack the slave ship we’re tailing and rescue the people onboard, but after that we need to prioritize her,” Nile said.

“We might have to take on a paying job or two to keep us fed and flying,” Seb cautioned, though he ached to say it.

“I know. But we’ll prioritize finding her.” Nile looked around the table. Everyone nodded. 

The dreams got worse. Joe had the least enviable job out of them, having to draw such horrible things as this girl was going through, but his sketches were vital in giving Jing Mei direction for her digital searching. The Old Guard eventually figured out that her first name was River, that the neuroscientists were trying to make her psychic, and that they were making her insane.

“This can’t be Quynh all over again,” Nicky said after another of their dream-sharing sessions. “I won’t allow it.”

“Good think you’re a psychotherapist now, _habibi_.” Joe hugged him from behind and kissed his cheek. During one of the lulls where the Old Guard took a break from constant fighting, Joe and Nicky had decided to take one of their occasional returns to higher education. Joe had studied modern field medicine to better help others they came across, and Nicky had studied psychology to help the team. They’d both not graduated properly thanks to the Unification War breaking out and the entire Old Guard enlisting with the Browncoats, but they had the knowledge, and that’s what mattered. 

****

When the shuttles returned, Mal greeted them and explained that these five Good Samaritans were also going to stay for dinner. He acted like everything was on the level, and Kaylee was excited to meet friendly new people. Simon managed to bundle River away before their guests saw them, and on her way to check on the engine room she stuck her head in and promised to bring them leftovers. Simon thanked her sincerely but distractedly, as River was in a fetal position mumbling something about guards and dreams. 

Zoe still needed to rest in the infirmary, and Wash didn’t want to leave her side yet. Kaylee coaxed him to agree to join them for dinner if Zoe was still sleeping by then. _The Scythian’s_ captain was talking to Mal about something on the bridge and were not to be disturbed. Book and Seb were talking quietly in the lounge, something about Seb fighting alcoholism. That sounded pretty private, so Kaylee backed away and went to the galley.

“You’re all being ever so nice, just giving us a catalyzer and all,” Kaylee said, taking a seat next to _The Scythian’s_ mechanic.

Jing Mei took a sip of Kaylee’s homemade wine without making a face, which was a first. “It’s nice to meet new people and spread out a bit. People say Firefly class ships are small, but believe me, after flying in a Leafhopper for months, this feels huge. We eat and socialize in the kitchen.”

“But there’s five bunks?” It seemed like an odd ratio for such a small ship. 

“No, there’s four. Though I sleep in the engine room more often than not and mostly just use my bunk for my stuff. I have a hammock like yours. _Scythia’s_ my true love, you know? I actually sleep better near her heart than in a ‘real’ bed.”

Kaylee beamed. “I think we’re going to be friends.” 

****

Inara was concerned by Mal’s behavior and how he talked about the crew of _The Scythian_. She couldn’t exactly put her finger on it, but he wasn’t acting like himself. When Nicky and Joe returned from fetching items on their ship, she greeted them with her best welcoming smile. She hadn’t had a chance to glimpse them earlier, and they were as good a start as any to try to get a read on.

“What do you have there?” she asked. Nicky was carrying a large canvas bag and Joe had a huge vacuum flask.

“Mint tea,” Joe announced, swishing it around.

“Some produce. Our ship can only take short trips compared to yours, but that means it’s practical to stock up on perishables more often,” Nicky said. 

“You’ve being extremely generous. You’re our guests.”

Joe made a dismissive gesture. “This is to combine with your packaged protein and such, make it taste like actual food. Nicky became an excellent cook after I introduced him to the concept of actual seasoning.”

“That was a very long time ago,” Nicky muttered, but with a spark in his eyes. “You will do the clean up for that remark.”

“Of course I will, my moon and stars.”

Jayne, passing by, grunted something about there being enough pretty boys on this ship already. He didn’t notice Nicky grab Joe’s wrist and make warning eye contact with him, but Inara did. Inara couldn’t tell if they were genuinely this besotted with each other, or if it was a front for something else. But dinner was, in fact, the best she’d ever had while not planetside. 

****

People who were kind enough to provide a ship in distress with a missing part for free were still not necessarily honorable enough to turn down an enormous bounty if they recognized the fugitives. River usually handled hiding with equanimity, but this time she was so incoherently agitated about it that it took some time for Simon to realize she _wanted_ to meet them.

Simon barred the door with his body and pleaded. “River, _meimei_ , we need to stay away from them. We don’t know if they might turn us in. It’s not safe.”

River balled her fists in her hands and was trembling with rage. If anyone else in the world had been barring her way like this, Simon suspected she would have physically attacked by now. “Not safe if they’re not here. You’re an idiot child. Your arguments are thus idiotic and childlike. Andromache of Scythia, gone but not forgotten, not the desert this time. Scalpel, not a knife.”

“I can give you something to help you feel a little calmer?”

“It won’t work, the body suspects poison, the body breaks it down, it heals too quick to assimilate, Simon, I see them in my head every night now, I see…” She slumped onto the bed. “ _Sono qui. Sono qui._ ”

Simon had studied some Latin in pre-med, as it assisted with medical terminology, and that sounded a bit like Latin while not quite being the same. Perhaps he was rusty. He stepped away from the door to see if a hug might be helpful.

Then the door opened, and instead of Kaylee with leftovers, it was two crew members from _The Scythian_ , a pair of men with very different appearances but matching hesitant expressions. Simon froze. He should act casual, right? If they hadn’t seen the arrest warrants, acting casual would be best. He needed to think of a lie. 

But River ran to them, and let herself be engulfed in a shared hug with herself in the center. She continued to repeat _sono qui_ with tears running down her face.

“ _La nostra sorellina,_ ” the taller one hugging her from behind said, also tearful.

“ _Siamo qui,_ ” said the shorter one that she had flung her arms around, his eyes squeezed shut. 

“You’re here, you really are here. You say I’m your sister. Simon’s my brother too, though,” River said, tilting her head in his direction. “He got me out. I can’t leave him yet.”

“He’s a very good and brave brother and we won’t make you do anything you don’t want to do,” said the shorter one.

The taller one separated himself from the hug, and looked at Simon with compassion. “Dr. Tam, are you aware that your sister can’t die?”

Simon wanted to lie. He wanted to lie. He couldn’t. He didn’t. “I’d - I’d hoped I was mistaken.” Certain intel shared by the people who helped Simon rescue River had suggested as much, but he’d found the implications so disturbing that he’d chalked it up to wishful thinking and hyperbole. He would have still done everything the same way if he’d been sure all this time. 

“We can’t either,” the other one said. He was stroking River’s hair in exactly the way that helped her fall asleep as a child. Simon had never felt such a combination of relief and jealousy in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mal's nicknames for Joe and Nicky in his head made me giggle internally.
> 
> Please let me know if I got any translations wrong.
> 
>  _putonghua_ \- Mandarin, the name of the specific type of Mandarin currently standardized as the national language of China
> 
>  _tai ke ai_ \- Mandarin, "too cute"
> 
>  _Tu n’es pas seul_ \- French, "You are not alone."
> 
>  _Bukeneng!_ \- Mandarin, "Impossible!"
> 
>  _madre di Dio_ \- Italian, "Mother of God"
> 
>  _habibi_ \- Arabic, "my love"
> 
>  _meimei_ \- Mandarin, "little sister"
> 
>  _sono qui_ \- Italian, "I am here", which River picked up from Joe and Nicky's minds because they often say it to each other
> 
>  _la nostra sorellina_ \- Italian, "our little sister"
> 
>  _siamo qui_ \- Italian, "we are here"


	2. Chapter 2

Both ships’ captains and two of the men from _The Scythian_ , gathered around Zoe in the infirmary while Wash was called away to actually do some piloting. Simon was there too, understandably. Mal cleared his throat. “I hate to bother you when you’re still recovering, Zoe, but these folk have presented me with a conundrum, and you know I don’t like acting without talkin’ it over with you beforehand.”

The three strangers introduced themselves by name, then Mal launched into the tale. Zoe listened to his story patiently. None of the others seemed surprised or skeptical, though Simon looked like he might scream or cry with only a tiny push. She sat up with the doctor’s help. “With all due respect, sir, you didn’t have much oxygen in your brain at the time.”

“Can I borrow this? If it’s something of ours, she might think I faked it.” Freeman asked Simon, who gave her a dazed nod. She was referring to one of his neatly organized and sterilized scalpels. 

“I can do it,” Seb offered.

“No, you’re the one who had to take a bullet earlier.” 

“I can do it,” Joe offered.

“No, you did the dishes. I’m sorry to startle you, ma’am, but the clock is ticking and this is quick.” Freeman took the scalpel and, with only a slight wince, made a long, deep cut in her forearm. Zoe didn’t even have time to react before it started to close up again. Simon handed Freeman a paper towel to wipe up the blood. Once the blood was gone, no trace remained.

“ _Go-se,_ ” Zoe said quietly. She waved off Simon’s attempt to help her lie back down. 

“You're taking this well. I see why your captain thinks highly of you,” said Joe. Said the man who was _over 1,400 years old_. She felt a little dizzy. Yes, she lived on a spaceship, but there was science fiction and then there was proof of magic walking among them. 

“What we need to decide on now is what to do next,” Freeman said, neatly disposing of the biohazard. “Right now we need to get some paying work done and are still tracking down whoever’s organizing the hunt for River. If she’s in danger, we’re all in danger.”

“More danger than usual,” Seb muttered.

Joe picked up the thread. “We don’t want River mixed up in that, but we also don’t want to leave River without the specialized help and protection we can give her. Your ship is only so large, and our little family can only be missing so many members at a time before our objectives become impossible.”

“Joe and his husband want to stay with us for a few months.” Mal said. He didn’t sound exactly excited at the idea, but he didn’t sound like he fully hated it either. “They claim Nicky’s got specialized brain-doctoring skills of some kind. Lord knows the girl could use that.”

“What do you think of that, doctor?” Zoe asked. 

“Psychotherapy straddles medicine and the humanities and isn’t my area of expertise, but I’m not totally ignorant on the subject. I had a talk with Nicky and I believe he does know what he’s talking about,” Simon said quietly. He’d started organizing the already perfectly organized drawer in front of him. Zoe couldn’t imagine what he had to be feeling right now. 

“Joe and Nicky helped me when I was the new one,” Freeman said, giving Joe a small smile. “Seb and Jing Mei and I can survive without them for a bit. We’ve split up this way before.”

Joe smiled back at her. “Nicky and I are willing to separate for temporary, practical reasons when we’re on a planet or moon, but in space, we are on the same ship or not at all. And I have my own role to play here.”

Mal crossed his arms. “That’s the way of things. I wanted to run all that by you before I gave the go-ahead. My inclination is to agree. The two gentlemen will be paying passage, though I’m giving a discount to account for the cost of the catalyzer.”

“And our gratitude.”

“Right, that too.”

Zoe chewed over all this information for a few seconds. She didn’t survive the war by being someone who couldn’t roll with the strangest of punches. “We need to think of a good story to tell the others.” She didn’t like to keep secrets from Wash, but it wasn’t a secret about her or him or their marriage. It was a secret that could get people who seemed decent so far into deep trouble. She knew Mal trusted her to tell the difference and abide by it. 

****

_The story:_

After some discussion, Mal had found a way to pay back _Serenity’s_ debt that involved letting Joe and Nicky lay low with them for a spell. The other three members of _The Scythian_ ’s squad had a chance to take on a lucrative set of assignments for a client who had a personal grudge against those two and wouldn’t give them the job if they were involved. They would pay their way at a reduced rate. They would be allowed to use the second shuttle as their quarters unless the _Serenity_ crew needed it, and if that need extended to sleeping hours they would take Simon’s room and he would share it with River. 

More importantly, the squad had been involved in helping Simon find and save River in the first place. Mercenaries with hearts of gold, etc. So she and Simon could safely interact with them. On top of that, Nicky was studying to be a kind of doctor who could _really_ help River before the war broke out and he enlisted. Now the Alliance was making him unable to practice or even graduate, so he was settling for acting as the “ship’s counselor” while making use of skills he’d learned as a soldier as his main way to earn a living. He’d agreed to help River as best he could, as a separate arrangement with the Tams.

As Mal and Zoe had already agreed and Wash had made no objection, it was not a matter up for debate. It was generally accepted. Kaylee surprised nobody when she grinned and clapped. 

“Are we gonna do something to make sure they can’t steal the shuttle?” Jayne asked. “Only we just barely got it back from that hot con artist lady.”

“We can lock the controls,” Mal sighed. “Trust me, I’ve studied up on how.”

****

“You three are going to be okay, right?” Joe asked yet again, squeezing Nile and lifting her off the floor.

“Don’t worry, I’ll protect them,” Jing Mei joked. 

“You’re going to break a rib,” Nile joked, hugging back just as hard.

“Andy broke one of my ribs hugging me the one time she tried Ecstasy,” Nicky reminisced. Enough time had passed that they could talk about Andy with love and joy rather than grief, with their entire ship a tribute to her memory. “She didn’t notice, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell her.”

“Keep your emergency vial with you at all times,” Seb said gruffly during his round of hugs. 

They insisted on kissing Seb on both cheeks, too, “because while you will die someday, you will never escape the curse of being French.” (Nicky’s words.) 

After moving into the second shuttle, Joe and Nicky took a moment to unwind and give each other the sponge baths that were the closest thing to a real bath they could have under these water-conserving conditions. Then they put on clothes comfortable enough to sleep in but substantial enough to run around in should there be an emergency, turned off the lights, and nestled in their blankets and each other. As always, Joe’s back was to a wall as he held Nicky, who faced the door and had placed a gun in easy reach. Big spoon and knife. Mattresses could be nice but their bedrolls were enough, and unlike more nights than they could count, they were warm and dry with full stomachs. 

“We should probably not speak a dead or dying language among the crew who don’t know the truth,” Nicky said, in his old native dialect. “Good thing Arabic is still widespread in some places.”

Joe interlaced the fingers of his right hand with Nicky’s, while his left hand toyed with the tiny vial hanging on a chain around his own neck. Nicky had a matching one. In the archaic Greek that had once been their only point of contact - and still only a handful of phrases at the time - Joe replied, “You make me think of when I was teaching you Arabic in our early years of loving one another, as we lay under the stars.”

“Mmm, and now we lie among them.” The novelty still hadn’t worn off yet, even after more than a lifetime as passengers on the generation ships fleeing Earth and seeking the new solar system. Those ships had occasionally met up with one another for trade and to conceive genetically diverse children, with some passengers choosing to end the docking period on a different ship than they’d started. Without those options for transfer to new populations, their lack of aging would have been too hard to hide. 

“I never thought we’d be so lucky.” Joe kissed his ear. “You are tense.”

“Everyone’s been talking me up like I can fix River. I know I can’t fix her.” Nicky took a shuddering breath. “I’m not even sure how much I can do. Not after what we saw happen to her.”

“Nicolo, you force too much on your own shoulders. Nobody is expecting you to make her the child she was again, nor to do what you’re doing alone. I know she will be better for your care, as well as mine.” Joe held him close until they both fell asleep, suspended in an eternal night sky.

****

While Joe was making the shuttle an appropriate therapy setting and classroom, Nicky had a conversation with Simon in the infirmary as he took stock of what supplies needed replacing. He knew it was the place where the surgeon felt most comfortable, despite his sister’s understandable hatred of it.

“I need you to understand that while we respect your rights as her legal guardian, you are not to pry into her therapy.”

“I understand how patient confidentiality works, thank you,” Simon said, not meeting Nicky’s eyes.

“I also need you to realize that she’s not going to be the child you knew. Never again. Grieve for that and move on. The damage they did to her brain before her first death is irreversible. Whatever healing she does now returns to it as her default state. Our objective is for to her to find peace and balance.” Nicky paused. “Also, if we get River’s permission, you need to talk to Joe about any medications you’re giving her. He knows what sort of doses are appropriate for people like us. You have done your best, but you’ve lacked necessary information.”

Simon had a pinched look to his face as he nodded. “I’d like to be alone, now.”

“Okay.” 

Nicky went to the shuttle. Joe had set up two cushioned seating areas on the floor facing one another, placed a box of tissues next to one of them, and turned on his digital music player so that it was broadcasting soothing ocean noises. River was sitting cross-legged with her eyes closed. 

“We had a light conversation about our interests and then I guided her into a simple meditation to ground her,” Joe whispered. He gave Nicky a quick peck on the lips. “I’ll be in the dining room or lounge working on my memoirs. Don’t forget to break for lunch.”

“His memoirs?” River asked, eyes still closed.

“Yes. He occasionally sends parts of it to historians he’s developed an arrangement with, under an assumed name. In fact, you may have read extracts in school. Mostly it’s for his own gratification, though.” Nicky took a seat across from her. 

“He illustrates them.”

“Yes.” Nicky took a deep breath. “How successful was the attempt to make you psychic?”

She opened her eyes, and there were dark depths in there no one so young should have. “Nicolo di Genova. You were a priest, then you were a Crusader, and then you were his. But not until after you’d killed each other many times. You’re ashamed of things you did when you thought his people were evil. You sleep lightly. You catch the bullet casing before it hits the ground after a sniper shot because you don’t want to leave the evidence behind. You don’t remember your mother’s face, but you remember songs she sang to you. You wanted to have sex with Joe last night, but you didn’t because you wanted to wake up early -”

“Okay, okay, I get the picture.” When her face fell, he clarified, “I’m not angry at you, but you were starting to sound stressed.”

“I can’t shut it out, and sometimes it’s better than what’s in my own head anyway. You can’t punch me full of holes and expect me to hold water.” She drew up her knees to hug them. “Are you going to make me a weapon? That’s what they did, and I didn’t want it, but if I have to be one, I’d rather be yours.”

He’d seen River’s combat training in his dreams, and the grace of it had taken him aback. She was like a caged bird singing the most beautiful of songs as its only outlet. “I can’t lie to you and say that I think you are entirely a child of peace any longer. But here’s a difference between being a weapon and being a warrior, _sorellina_. A warrior can choose which battles are worth fighting. This is a discussion for another time, and better suited for when you are with Joe. He’s the fun teacher.”

“I like how calm you are, organized, with your big house in your head and all the labeled drawers. Your head blank except for your eyes and the wind, lying on rooftops, waiting for a clean shot. Can you teach me? The mind part, not the shooting part.”

“One thing at a time,” he agreed. “We will do regular therapy, as well, but you have a more immediate need. Have you heard of the method of loci? Some also call it the memory palace or mind palace. That is what you see in my mind.”

“Ancient technique of memorization, more common in eras before widespread literacy and the printing press, in which important information is converted into images and stored in an imagined physical location,” she rattled off.

“Correct. More importantly, it helps organize memories neatly, which grows more important when you reach our age. If you are psychic, you are taking on memories not your own, both good and bad. This makes it harder to deal with your own. Joe and I have spent centuries helping one another build our loci. We’ve tried to teach the others, but they have been less interested. I think your need for this is greater than theirs.”

“I don’t want to think about the Academy,” River said, trembling. 

“You don’t have to right now. Close your eyes. Think of a place you know well. A place that makes you feel comfortable and safe.”

“ _Serenity._ ” she murmured immediately. “I know every part of the ship. Little spider, creeping, when the others don’t know.”

“Okay. Think of four places to begin your most basic organization. One place is for bad memories that you will sort through later, but not now. Then another place on the ship is where you will keep the happy memories that are your own. The third, general knowledge and learning from elsewhere, that is neutral. The fourth, the memories of others. May I hold your hands? Start with the happy memories as you learn the technique. Each memory is in finest detail - this thing, you now make into a single spot on the wall, this other bigger thing is a chair, this is a can of molded protein…”

****

After a light lunch, Nicky sat in the shuttle’s pilot’s chair to watch Joe work with River. Everything on the floor had been cleared away to give them some space. River had been wearing one of her loose dresses that Simon had probably bought in a hurry with little idea of his sister’s size and shape after more than two years apart, but Joe provided her with some exercise pants and comfortable tee borrowed from Nile. It wasn’t a perfect fit but would be more suitable. There was nothing for her bare feet, but River seemed to prefer it that way, like it allowed her to commune with the ship.

“I want to approach this with a sense of joy,” Joe said. “We know you love to dance. Would you honor us with a demonstration?”

She broke out in the first truly happy grin they’d seen on her. “Do you have any ballet music? Can’t do en pointe in bare feet, but I remember the choreography.”

“Maestro?” Joe asked Nicky, with a wink.

Nicky scrolled through the music selection. “We have some tracks from _Swan Lake_. Will that do?”

“Yes, yes, yes.”

She was like an ethereal spirit, one meant to flit among the stars, one meant to praise life with her every movement. Joe watched her in wide-eyed silence, his affection for her as one of their kind now blooming into admiration for her as something truly unique.

“Something faster,” she said. “Not ballet. Can either of you dance?”

Joe didn’t ask if she’d be able to figure out the moves. He tried not to ask obvious questions, after all. “My heart, find a track suitable for mid-20th century West Coast Swing.” It stayed in a narrow and defined slot, and was therefore suitable for a smaller area such as the shuttle, while also encouraging moments of improvisation. 

Absolute perfection followed. From River, at least. Joe missed a few steps, but it was a long-dead dance form he and Nicky had only learned for an undercover mission in California back in the 1970’s. So who was to know?

When she was out of breath and glowing, Joe instructed her to take a seat and have some water. “We are not here to push you into something you aren’t ready for, but I want you to see another way to dance.” He put the mats back on the floor for some slight cushioning and beckoned Nicky over.

No music, this time, just a modified hand-to-hand fighting style that blended a hundred or more martial arts. Neither of them sought to win or lose. Only to keep each other on his toes.

River enjoyed the display, but when Joe asked if she’d like to see what something similar looked like with weapons, she curled up into a ball and went nonverbal. He apologized and switched to soothing her with kind words and poetry while sitting nearby. 

“The young immortal would prefer to practice the loci method at this time,” River whispered after about twenty minutes.

Joe looked over to Nicky, then back to her. He felt guilty for triggering her like he had, but he realized that if he was to play a part in her training, such moments would be inevitable. “Then you shall.”

****

Ten days into therapy and training, River cautiously agreed to spar with Joe for the first time so he could get an idea of her skills. No weapons. She had him down on the mat and tapping out within eight minutes. “You shouldn’t go easy on me.”

“You’ve demonstrated how much of a bad idea that is,” Joe wheezed. 

Nicky hid his laughter behind his hand, but it was unmistakable. “Remember, you’re not trying to teach River how to fight, you’re teaching her how to take pride in and embrace her warrior self. What better way than this?”

“He’s going to spank you for that later,” River said cheerfully. They tried not to think overtly sexual thoughts around her. Sometimes lighter things slipped through their barriers anyway. It was more important to keep a lockdown on thoughts about their own traumas, not wanting to add to hers. 

****

After a month of the couple being on the ship, Jayne was getting irritated to the breaking point. Sure, whatever Nicky was doing with the moonbrain kept her out of the way, and Jayne didn’t see much of her except when there was chow. She was acting less and less crazy during mealtimes except for still talking a lot of nonsense, which was easy to tune out. Nicky was pretty much invisible outside of mealtimes and the occasional after-dinner card game. Jayne had walked in on him having long chats with the preacher about God-stuff, or conferring with the doc about his sis, but otherwise he was a quiet little man who made himself pretty scarce. Joe was pleasant as could be, took on other people’s chores if they were busy, and seemed to be an endless source of funny stories. Jayne understood why they were popular with the crew.

Look. Jayne didn’t have a problem with sly men. No skin off his nose what folk did with their own lives on their own time. But they didn’t need to be such overbearing honeymooners about it. For the first week, they’d been about the same level as Wash and Zoe, and that was fine. Some pet names, some indirect references to going to their bunk for private time. Then as they got more relaxed about being on _Serenity_ , the pet names got more and more frequent, and the hand-holding under the table and kisses all sorts of places. Plus constantly whispering to each other in a language Jayne didn’t recognize.

“What are you always gabbing to each other in?” Jayne finally asked during one dinner. 

Joe finished passing the salt to Zoe before answering. “Arabic. We didn’t mean to be rude, sorry, he was just complimenting me about the beard I’m growing back in again after being clean-shaved for a few years. I’m a Muslim, though my relationship with my faith is different than it once was. Arabic isn’t the native language of all Muslims, but as our original religious texts are in it, it’s common to learn at least some.”

“I never met any before,” Jayne said, still suspicious. Not that he thought they were making it up, but he thought it could be a thin excuse for getting away with hiding things from the others. 

“The largest Muslim populations these days are in the Core, while the ones on the outer rim are scattered in small enclaves. I’m not one, but I studied the language for a while in order to be closer to Joe,” Nicky said, giving him a soppy glance.

“That’s so sweet!” Kaylee exclaimed. “Isn’t that sweet, Simon?”

“Uh huh,” Simon said, focusing on his plate. 

“Don’t be so _yinchen_ ,” River pleaded with Simon. 

“You said you both went to school in the Core. If you’re from there, why’d you join the Browncoats?” Wash asked. Which was what Jayne wanted to know too, though Wash sounded less hostile about it than Jayne would have. He just sounded curious.

“You don’t need to be from a certain land to ally yourself with a righteous cause,” Joe said. “However else my beliefs have changed, that one is unshakable.”

“I’m impartial towards my distaste for God talk when I have to sit and listen,” Mal said. "Jesus, Allah, Buddha, whatever.”

“Technically, Buddha isn’t a god,” Inara said, mildly. “While we’re asking you questions, Joe, I’m curious about the rings you’re wearing. Some of them have intricate patterns.”

“Oh, yes, Nicky got me most of them, though this one with the engraved horse is in memory of an old friend of mine. I’m wearing both our wedding rings, too. Nicky doesn’t like wearing rings.”

“Ring finger was chopped off, lost the ring, didn’t want to repeat the experience,” Nicky said. “Joe takes his off if he thinks there might be a fight, but I don’t want to take chances.”

“They did an impressive job reattaching it,” Book said, as he was sitting on Nicky’s other side and had an easy view. “I know fingers are particularly difficult to return to full range of motion.”

 _How does a Shepherd know that?_ Jayne thought, yet again. 

“Yes, you’d never guess what happened,” Simon said, sounding bitter. Jealous that someone else had done a good job patching someone up? Jayne hadn’t thought he was quite _that_ petty.

The next day, Jayne woke up early in a bad mood for other reasons to start with, and he thought a good lifting session would clear his head. They were landing on a moon today for a job, and even though it was a simple and straightforward one, Jayne wanted to be at his best. There’d be just enough time to squeeze in a workout.

Only Nicky was already on the bench, lifting an impressive amount while Joe acted as his spotter. They were both talking to the doc, who was standing off to the side with a tablet, taking notes with a stylus.

“Hey, who said you could use that?” Jayne asked.

Joe blinked at him. “Mal said this equipment was open to all the crew.”

“Well, you ain’t crew.”

“Mal said Book uses it sometimes,” Joe continued, sounding like he was talking to an unreasonable child.

“That’s different.”

“Leave them alone, Jayne,” Simon said dismissively, and the husbands said something to each other in Arabic and laughed, and the combination of all those things drove Jayne over the edge.

He cocked his head. “Oh, I’m sorry, did I interrupt you about to ask Pretty Boy for a threeway? Put him out of his misery? And set poor Kaylee free, too, who he keeps stringing along? I should have known all the lovey-dovey song and dance was you trying too hard to act like things aren't going stale.”

Simon’s face went totally blank and he clutched the tablet to his chest. Nicky racked the weights and sat up. He looked Jayne in the eyes and said, in a voice colder than being spaced, “You perceive yourself as having no worth outside what you think of as masculinity, and you lash out at those who threaten that perception. I pity you.”

“You pity me? You pity _me_? I’m not the fancy Core boy who pretends he hasn’t sunk into the same ugly world the rest of us live in, keeping your giant nose in the air -”

Joe punched Jayne in the face. Jayne almost fell to the floor from the force of it, but he regained his balance and sprang up with a feral smirk. “You wanna go? Huh?”

“I really do,” Joe growled.

“ _La, la, Yusuf!_ ” Nicky called after him, but Joe ignored him. Good. Jayne could use a good scrap and put one of these guys in his place.

Jayne lost himself in the fight, after that, and it took several minutes to dawn on him that Joe was pulling his punches. After a few more taunts, though, Joe went full tilt. Then Jayne realized he was losing. He moved the fight up to the catwalk, reasoning that since he knew the terrain better, he could trap Joe against the railing and get him to admit defeat. 

Instead, he accidentally made Joe fall off. And break his neck on impact with a sickening crunch. Blood from the back of his head spattered the floor. 

“What did you do?!” Kayle screamed. It turned out that the noise of the fight had attracted everyone else on the ship, who were staring at either Joe or Jayne. At least Inara was with a client.

“I didn’t mean to.” Jayne said, frozen, unable to look at anything except the man he’d killed. “Is he really dead?”

Simon checked his pulse. “Yes, Jayne, you killed him. Think about that.”

Nicky knelt on Joe’s other side. He stroked Joe’s face and whispered to him. 

Moments later, Joe’s eyes opened. Jayne passed out. Only for a minute, but he’d never live it down. 

****

Mal rushed through the explanation, because there was work to be done, even if it wasn’t the kind of explanation that was served well by rushing. Upon conclusion, he said, “You’re not coming with us today, Jayne, you need to pull yourself together.”

“You and Zoe can’t do the job by yourselves,” Jayne protested. He was in the dining room with Wash, Book, and Kaylee, because apparently everyone else who'd seen Joe come back to life had already been in the know. The others were either with Zoe, or in Simon’s case cleaning up Joe’s blood. Something about this being a result of trying to defend Simon’s honor and wanting to repay them. 

He’d told Jayne when Jayne came to: _“Implying I’m sly is fine. It’s merely inaccurate. But implying that I’m deliberately playing with Kaylee’s emotions, I take issue with. My feelings for her are not your business, and neither is whatever interest she has in me. I’ll let you know when I’m ready for you to apologize.”_ Then checked to make sure Jayne was physically okay in the most mechanical way possible.

 _“Do - do you mean you have some feelings?”_ Kaylee had asked, but Mal hauled Jayne away by the upper arm for a lecture before Jayne could hear the rest of that conversation. 

“We can do the job with Joe and River in the mix instead,” Mal said, bringing Jayne back to the present. “He’s got a truly ridiculous amount off expertise, and he says River needs the practice.”

“What? You can’t!”

“Why are you arguing what’s already been decided?” Mal cleared his throat. “I don’t want any more deaths on my boat today, accidental, temporary, or otherwise. If any of you have more questions, ask Nicky, but don’t pester him too much. _Dong ma?_ Jayne, you’re taking over Simon’s latrine duty for today.”

Jayne held his tongue and did it. Better than scrubbing the blood anyhow. He went to relax in his bunk after completing the chore, only to find Nicky sitting on the bed. Which Nicky had _made to military standard_. " I only want to talk. No more violence.”

Jayne gulped and decided to stay standing. “What are you gonna do?”

“The death was an accident, yet some of the pain was deliberate.” Nicky made motions like he was taking something apart. “It’s painful for us to reassemble ourselves, so I have taken what you love most on this ship and disassembled it.”

“Vera?”

Nicky nodded. “The more people who know we are immortal, the harder we must work to maintain our safety, so I’ve hidden all the pieces in different parts of the ship. You must work hard to put the pieces back together. If you know the ship and your gun well, you should be able to reassemble her. If not, she is not the only gun of her kind in the ‘verse, whereas Joe is the only one of his kind. If you cause me or my family - that includes River and Simon - any trouble again, I will be much less kind.”

“Got it,” Jayne said, cringing. 

As Nicky was climbing back up the ladder he paused to add, “None of the pieces are in the infirmary. I don’t want you compromising everyone’s health. Also…”

“What?”

“You have good qualities beyond how tough you are, Jayne. Not many, but they can grow if you cultivate them.” Then he was gone. 

****

Six months after parting ways with Joe and Nicky, Nile sent them a wave. Captain Reynolds transferred it to them right away.

“Your beard looks good, Joe, I missed it,” she said.

“We missed you,” Joe replied. “Is this catching up, or is it big news?”

Nile sighed. They’d all wanted to keep in touch more, but everything had been so hectic. “We tracked down and dealt with some guys called the Blue Hands who were after River, but Jing Mei’s found intel about someone even more serious and threatening. If we find him, we’ll make a real breakthrough. We need you two for that, though. River would be flying into danger if she came with us. Nicky, do you think she can handle being without you for awhile?”

“I’ve given her tools to help herself, and it will be at least a few more months before she will need help reaching the next stage,” Nicky said. 

“I would say the same,” Joe said. “Shall we talk to Mal about helping us rendezvous?”

“Yes. One last thing. It’s weird. Nicky, you’re going to love it, since you believe in destiny.” Seb got drunk as soon as he could after they found out, but he was back on the wagon now. Nile took a deep breath. “The guy we’re looking for is called The Operative, but he’s descended from Copley. Looks just like him.”

****

River didn’t want them to go, but she knew they had to. She managed to stop crying before their final, private goodbye in the shuttle. There was going to be a bigger group goodbye after. 

“We have a present for you before we go,” Joe said, and he handed her a tiny glass vial on a fine chain. 

“Wear this always,” Nicky warned. 

River saw the reason in their minds, and shivered. Reavers were the most terrifying thing in the world to anyone who knew of them, but it was nothing to the terror they held for anyone who _couldn’t die_. Joe and Nicky couldn’t even bear to say it aloud. 

Joe continued, “The powder is a highly concentrated version of the drugs that allow you to simulate death temporarily. This is more convenient than a needle to inject yourself with. You can always claim it’s a loved one’s ashes. In a time of need, you can either snort it or rub it on your gums. After about three minutes you will appear to be dead for two hours.”

“They want us alive when they eat us,” River said.

“Exactly. This will give you a chance of being ignored until...those things...have moved on. Unfortunately, we metabolize drugs too quickly for it to be any longer, though too long and we would risk someone burying or cremating us. It’s not a perfect solution, but it’s better than nothing.” Joe wrapped his arms around her and kissed her temple. “We will miss you.”

“Remember to continue sorting your thoughts and writing in your journal,” Nicky said. They’d done plenty more of the standard talk therapy as well, but the loci practice had been the most helpful. He hugged her from behind. “Treasure the time you have with this other family of yours, too. Even Jayne, who has much improved after his lessons.”

River laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \- If iterations of Christianity, Buddhism, and Judaism have canonically survived into the Firefly 'verse, I highly doubt some form of Islam hasn't. 
> 
> \- Joe has a ring with an engraved horse in memory of Andy because horses were very important to Scythian culture.
> 
> Translations:
> 
>  _Go-se_ \- Mandarin, "shit"
> 
>  _sorellina_ \- Italian, "little sister"
> 
>  _yinchen_ \- Mandarin, "gloomy"
> 
>  _La, la!_ \- Arabic, "no, no!"
> 
>  _Dong ma?_ \- Mandarin, "do you understand?"


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've given up on predicting how long this will be. Oh well.
> 
> Jing Mei is much more of a city girl than Kaylee, and she enjoys introducing her adoptive immortal family to the delights of contemporary personal electronics as well as being their mechanic/Copley successor. So while a Leafhopper class is dinkier than a Firefly, they have a few toys the Serenity crowd are not shown having. This is also to scratch my various "Old Guard in Spaaaace" itches.

Nile finished her quota of pushups, crunches, and whatever other exercise was in her rotation for today, got up from the floor of her cabin, and took a sip of water. When she turned off the exercise music, she could hear shouting from the common area. She changed into a less sweaty shirt and went to investigate.

“I can’t believe you would wrong me like this!” Joe was shouting.

Seb cackled. “It sucks to suck, doesn’t it?”

Turns out they’d placed a holo projector in the center of the kitchen/dining table and were watching lasershot ball, which was like soccer and laser tag mixed together. She got there in time to see Joe slide some slips of paper over to Seb, grumbling in what might have been Swahili. Next to Joe, Nicky was coating his longsword in protective polish, his seat angled so that he couldn’t have been paying much attention to the game, but he was chuckling at his husband’s misfortune. Joe and Nicky’s swords would have become unusable by now if not for a mix of ancient maintenance style and modern polish. 

Joe looked up at Nile and complained, “Nicky and I favor Ariel in the System Cup, because of our happy times studying there, but Seb insists on supporting Londinium even though he went to pilot school on Sihnon!” For a few of the years between the first few Core planets being terraformed and the start of the Unification war, the guys had gone back to school. One of them would trade off updating his field medic qualifications every few decades, while the others would learn something new. This time, though, Nile had decided to travel and get to know the ‘verse better. She’d kept in touch and visited often, but it had been good for her to stretch her legs and find herself again after spending so much time stuck on a space ark sharing tiny quarters with the other three. 

“I’m cheering for Londinium because Sihnon’s coach couldn’t lead ducklings into a pond,” Seb said, looking over his winnings, which were “IOU chores” coupons rather than real money. “There is no place for sentiment here, Joe. Now I get to skip out on two laundry shifts and a deck swabbing.”

“I’ll take one of the laundry shifts if you make it worth my while,” Nicky said, predictably. 

“I’ll make it very worth your while,” Joe promised, just as predictably. It was like a comfortable recurring beat in a song. 

Jing Mei was leaning against a kitchen counter eating the last of the sesame cakes. “Three cooking turns says Londinium gets whupped by Hera in the next match, though, _hao bu hao_?”

“Nobody wants Seb to cook three extra times, though,” Joe said. Nicky shook his head. 

Nile was smiling at the scene, but it was time to get serious. “ETA for Beaumonde? Will you be ready to land us?”

Seb switched off the holo. “Yes, ma’am. ETA five hours and twenty minutes, give or take.” Learning to fly a spaceship had been the first thing to truly make Seb have any success at sobriety, because he’d finally found something he loved more than he loved getting drunk. Everyone made an effort to praise his piloting skills, which he earned honestly. 

“I’m looking forward to seeing my _nainai_ ,” Jing Mei said, now licking stray sesame seeds off her fingers. A few had fallen onto her green hoodie that said “BELLEROPHON GIRLS DO IT FLOATY STYLE”, which she’d assured everyone was a hilarious meme on the Cortex. Jing Mei had grown up on Beaumonde, but only her grandma lived near the space port, and they wouldn’t have time to visit any of her other relatives.

“Can you ask her to make those scallion pancakes again?” Seb asked, a gleam in his eye. 

“I’m almost as excited about the pancakes as I am about seeing River,” Joe said. Nicky nodded. They were still tracking down the Operative and weren’t ready to invite River onboard yet, but _Serenity_ had some business on Beaumonde and it was a convenient place for _The Scythian_ to stock up on supplies anyway, besides of course letting Jing Mei see at least one of her relatives after their meetup with River was over.

“I love Beaumonde in general,” Seb continued. “It’s not totally in the grip of the Alliance, but it’s more than a dusty heap.” 

Jing Mei grinned. “Yeah, plus it has a French name, bustling cities, horribly polluted rivers, and a countryside full of farmers and ranchers where people ride around on horseback more often than not. You must feel right at home.”

Nile could see Joe and Nicky get tense, and she was a bit nervous herself. Seb still didn’t like to talk about his home, era, or biological family, but they’d never told Jing Mei to completely avoid the subject. That would have been too much like patronizing him. Also, Jing Mei’s entire knowledge of 19th-century France came from a holo adaptation of the _Les Miserables_ stage musical, which could go either way in terms of upsetting vs. hilarious. 

Seb just waggled a finger at her. “While you’re not wrong, you should respect your elders.”

“Shiny, grandpa.” Jing Mei stuck out her tongue. 

****

Simon had hardly slept since River nearly was caught by Reavers while helping out with a heist, even with Kaylee’s best efforts to, uh, wear him out. Just over a week after Jayne killed Joe and Simon accidentally hinted at his interest in Kaylee in front of everyone, he’d ended up moving into Kaylee’s quarters because that was more efficient than tiptoeing back to the passenger rooms to sleep every night. Knowing that River had people to look out for her other than himself had given him freedom to think about what he wanted for himself.

( _“We were starting to think it’d take a near-death experience for you to make a move, son,”_ Mal had said, with a slight twist to his mouth that Kaylee said was a good thing.)

Now, though, Simon was troubled by the thought that maybe River needed to be with the immortals, not him. And if so, where should he be? He kept a smile on his face when he, Kaylee, and River broke away from the rest to greet the crew of _The Scythian_ , trying to hide his turmoil from everyone who wasn’t a psychic. He didn’t partake in hugs like his sister and girlfriend did, but he shook hands with them and offered to order the first round.

“I know what nonalcoholic drinks River might like, and she seems rather glued to her teachers right now,” Simon explained. He’d been assured a dozen times that this location was safe for him and her to show their faces, and seeing River’s delight and how she slotted in so perfectly with her undying new family was making bile rise up in his throat.

“Simon?” River asked, now anxious and turning her head away from burying it in Joe’s chest like she used to with their father when he came home from work after a business trip. 

“I’ll go with him,” Kaylee promised, taking Simon’s hand and squeezing it.

“Shiny, could you also get me and Joe fruit juice or soda or something?” Seb asked, handing Simon some platinum to cover the round. It hadn’t been made clear to Simon whether Joe also abstained from alcohol for religious reasons, or simply so that Seb didn’t have to be alone in sobriety. He respected it either way.

As he and Kaylee turned to make their way to the bartender, he heard Jing Mei say, “We were watching Londinium vs. Hera on the TV over there while we waited for you, and I don’t know if you’re into the System Cup or not. Do you have a favorite?”

There was another TV directly above where Simon and Kaylee had to stand to consider the drinks selection. Simon was idly aware of the cheers of the stadium crowd switching to the jaunty jingles of advertisements. 

_“Fruity oat-y bars make a man out of a mouse, fruity oat-y bars make you bust out of your blouse, get ‘em all the time, let ‘em blow your mind, WOO!”_

Then the screams and fighting noises started. Simon and Kaylee whipped around and saw River wreaking absolute havoc. Her face was blank as she tore through everyone around her with ruthless efficiency.

“What’s she doing?” Kaylee whispered, a death grip on Simon’s forearm. Like the rest of _Serenity’s_ crew, she knew River could fight and couldn’t die, and had eventually been told about River’s Reading abilities, too, when River had decided she could trust them and that it was unethical to keep it hidden anymore.

But she hadn’t known that River could be triggered like this. Simon hadn’t told anyone, though he suspected the immortals knew. Now it was coming back to bite him.

He was distantly aware of Freeman getting people out of the way, Seb stealing a gun from a bouncer - to compensate for having left his own weapons out the door - and shooting out surveillance cameras, and Joe and Nicky trying to restrain River or at least draw her attention away from people she could hurt permanently. Jing Mei had ducked under the table.

“That’s not River right now,” Simon said, calling upon years of being calm and methodical during surgeries to stay functional. Kaylee was frozen in shock, so Simon gently guided her to crouch behind some ornamental plants for at least some cover. His heart ached. He gave her a quick kiss, hoping it would say what he didn’t have time or courage to put into words, and stepped into the open. “ _Eta Kooram Nah Smech!_

River fell to the floor asleep. 

Their next moves had to happen with lightning speed, no time for dithering or goodbyes beyond what he’d already squeezed in. Seb put down the gun and gently scooped up River. Joe was carrying Nicky, who was alive but in too much pain to walk. His shirt had a big gash in it and the crimson stains were still spreading while he kept his hands over the wound to prevent anything spilling out. Freeman locked eyes with Simon and mouthed, “ _With us?_ ”

On his way out, he looked back long enough to see Mal help Kaylee to her feet and put an arm around her. She would be safer if Simon and River were far away. He now knew, with grim certainty, that people were going to die because of this search for the his sister. It made sense to skew the odds towards people who’d come back again. 

****

“We’re gonna need a bigger boat,” Jing Mei said, pulling a blanket up to her waist. Nile wished for a moment that Jing Mei would have understood a _Jaws_ reference in response. Right now, Jing Mei was chilling out in her engine room hammock with her Dedicated Source Box, which Nile thought of as a super fancy laptop, especially since Jing Mei had made many unorthodox upgrades the immortals couldn’t begin to understand. Simon wasn’t sure how long River was going to stay asleep, but they’d tucked her into Nile’s bed. Nile had volunteered to sleep on the floor tonight. Better for River to have a roommate she couldn't kill if she woke up mind-controlled, and the other immortals were either already doubled up or had cluttered most of his room with a bookcase and his beloved flying motorcycle. As for Simon, Jing Mei slept in the engine room more often than not, so she’d offered him the use of her bunk. Unlike with River, she wasn't nervous about leaving Simon alone with her gaming equipment and other gadgets. 

“We’re upgrading as soon as we can,” Nile replied. This was the biggest they had able to afford after losing the war, and it was hard to save up when at least a third of their missions weren't for profit. “We need to focus, though. What’ve you got on news coverage of the incident?”

“Nothing. Zero. Is it weird for me to be more worried about that than if it were plastered on every screen in the ‘verse?” 

“No, it means you have good instincts. Keep researching for now.”

“Yes, cap’n.” 

Nile went to Joe and Nicky’s door and knocked softly. Joe stuck his head out and whispered, “Nicky’s sleeping. Healing from disembowelment always tires him out. We need to restock our painkiller cabinet, by the way.”

“I’ll add that to the shopping list. You’re not going to take it out on River, right?” Nile didn’t think so, but she’d feel better if she confirmed it.

Joe shook his head vehemently. “The Alliance did this with her stolen hands.”

“I’ll add that to the vengeance list.”

“Hah, yes, good.”

Next she went to check on Seb, over in the pilot’s chair. After seeing Wash’s plastic dinosaurs and seeing how amused Seb was by them, she’d gotten a set of plastic zoo animals in case he’d like similar decorations. He normally kept them all lined up like a parade on his dashboard, but sometimes Joe or Nicky would find one by surprise, like tucked inside a shoe or swimming in a cup of coffee. Right now he was reading one of the displays while playing with a tiny giraffe between his fingers. “You know, I can’t remember if we cleared out the fridge in our Osiris safehouse before the last time we cleared out. Though that’s not my reason for trepidation about returning to that particular planet.”

“That’s the best place to get to the bottom of this,” Nile insisted. “It’s where the Tams grew up. It’s where the Academy is. There’s a major classified Parliamentary records storage bunker in Capital City. Yeah, we thought River would be safer on _Serenity_ , but clearly, she’s not. And I can’t stop thinking about how I started, how Andy told me you guys were gonna protect me, but it turned out you needed me as much as I needed you.”

“I’m not arguing, I’m just saying.” He looked up at her. “Are we still doing movie night tonight, or are we in too much of a crisis mode?”

****

River woke in an unfamiliar bed with only a softly glowing nightlight for illumination. Her scan of the room proved unremarkable, though the tattered posters of famous art pieces from Earth-That-Was on the walls gave her hope. She felt even more hope when she found a note fixed to the locked door. _To get out, 4 digits, year of Nile’s birth plus Joe & Nicky’s death._

She padded barefoot through the hall of a ship she knew from others’ minds, but not her own experience. Following the sound of laughter.

The door to Joe and Nicky’s room was cracked open. She peeked inside at the quartet. They’d set up their holo projector on a table on the far side of the room. Wash and Zoe had one in their room, but it wasn't portable and it would have felt strange for anyone else on the ship to watch with them. The immortals were all heaped on the bed, which was understandably almost twice as large as the one she’d woken up in. Nicky and Joe were lying down cuddling in a similar pose to the one they slept in, and Nile and Seb were sitting up, but Nile was petting Nicky’s hair, Seb was giving Nile a shoulder rub, and Joe had draped his legs over Seb’s like he was lazily keeping him from drifting away. 

Seb paused the shoulder rub as well as the movie. “Do you want to join us? You don’t have to be this, uh, tangled up, if you prefer not to be.”

 _Andy was great at hugs,_ Joe and Nicky thought, so sad and sweet and synchronized that River couldn’t help but pick it up out of the general buzzing thoughts swirling around. Reading immortal minds worked differently, she'd learned. It was easier to let them wash over her without lingering, only picking up occasional sentences or images unless she actively went looking. It was less overwhelming.

River saw the appeal of so much friendly contact, but she also had too much on her own mind. “I don’t know. Where’s Simon?”

Nile said, “He wanted to help Jing Mei with her research. I can go get him.”

“Are you feeling better?” Joe asked. “We set a code that we didn’t think you could figure out if you weren’t yourself, but that doesn’t mean all is well.”

"Things are going to get much, much worse," River whispered, feeling a tilt on some fundamental level, feeling like she was about to fall. "Four...three...two…"

Then they all heard Jing Mei scream.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _nainai_ \- Mandarin, paternal grandmother
> 
>  _hao bu hao_ \- Mandarin, "good or not good?"
> 
>  _Eta Kooram Nah Smech!_ \- Russian, canonical line that directly translates to something like "this is hilarious for chickens!", but really means "this is ridiculous!"


	4. Chapter 4

_A little earlier…_

“Thank you for sharing your whole process getting River out of the Academy. I know it’s not fun to think about, but we never know what might be useful.”

Simon looked up from the tablet Jing Mei had handed him, where he was trying to put his experiences into words as best he could. The engine room didn’t have any seating besides Jing Mei’s hammock, so he was sitting on her bed while she sat at her desk typing, likely committing numerous cybercrimes for a good cause. “I’m glad to do something useful on this ship. There isn’t much call for a doctor.”

“Hey, cheer up, maybe I’ll break my ankle and neither Nicky nor Joe will be able to help…”

“They’re _both_ qualified medics?” Simon sagged a bit.

“Nicky’s qualifications are super out of date because he prioritized learning to be a therapist the last time there was a chance to go back to school?” She winced. “Wrong thing to say. Sorry. Ooh, Wash’s Signaler friend replied to my message. There’s an attached file.”

Simon knew that as soon as _Serenity_ had safely gotten away, Wash had contacted Jing Mei about someone who was unparalleled at both finding and transmitting information, but he didn’t know any details. “What’s a Signaler?”

Jing Mei swiveled around in her chair. “We’re an interplanetary community on the Shadow Cortex. I’m sure you had to use the Shadow Cortex a bit to find the contacts to help River, right? We believe in finding what the Alliance wants to keep hidden, and wielding it in the causes of freedom and justice. I took it up as a hobby while I was in my mechanic apprenticeship. That’s how I stumbled on these _lao ren_ and was so fascinated that I pestered them to give me a job. Good, no parasites, file’s clean. Let’s see what Mr. Universe has for me.”

The attachment was a video of the Fruity Oatey bar commercial, but instead of proceeding one might ordinarily see it, Mr. Universe had separated out multiple layers of the images. One of the layers was a stream of numbers and letters, incomprehensible at a glance. “They showed her a subliminal trigger?”

“He says it’s been popping up everywhere. I would need to spend days to fully decrypt it, and that’s if some other Signalers let me borrow their processing power, but that’s definitely high military code.” She paused it. “This is the exact moment that we heard River say _‘Miranda’_ , then start fighting everyone. When River wakes up, can you ask her about it? She’s going to feel the safest talking to you.”

“Safest? With me?” He tried not to sound bitter, but he knew his words were laced with it, like tea that had been steeped in hot water for too long. 

Jing Mei scooted closer and put a hand on each of his shoulders. She looked him in the eye. “ _Didi_ , the weirdos I live with are good at protecting people from physical harm, but you’ve known River her whole life and done more for her than anyone else in the world. I know what it’s like feeling insecure about what you can possibly give to such legends, but I wouldn’t be here if they didn’t need me. Neither would you.”

“Thank you.” Simon didn’t have time to say more, because Jing Mei’s Source Box make a pinging noise.

“Ah, that’s the sound I get when my _legal_ account receives a message.” She returned to her desk.

Simon had barely written another sentence when he heard Jing Mei gasp. “What is it? What’s wrong?”

The message was all in Chinese characters, which Simon could read a little but was rusty. Jing Mei was also scrolling too quickly for him, her hands shaking. “The Operative says he has my family in custody, and, and, and for every twenty-four hours we don’t give River back, h-he-he’s going to have one executed. I can buy an extra five hours for the first one if I have the captain contact him to talk things over. But it’s a bluff, it has to be a bluff, they can’t have rounded them up so quickly. They can’t. I warned everyone to run and hide!”

When she got to the bottom of the message, there was an image of six people in some dingy gray room, hands cuffed behind their backs. Two of them were children. One of the men was bleeding from a head wound, and someone from off camera was holding a sword up to his throat. Jing Mei screamed. 

****

Nile took the contact information that had been sent to Jing Mei and made the call in her own cabin, leaving the door open. Seb, Joe, and Nicky were hovering within earshot but out of view of the camera. She wanted to keep this asshole’s focus on her as much as she could. 

They’d seen pictures of the Operative before, but seeing him live brought home how much he looked and even sounded like Copley. He even had that soft-spoken sincerity. “I’m glad you’re willing to listen to reason, Captain Freeman.”

“I’m willing to hear you explain your motivations,” she corrected, standing as straight and as still as the Marines taught her.

“In that case, I fear I must disappoint you. I will not prevaricate. I want River back. The only negotiation here is regarding where you will be able to land to most quickly return her to us.”

“We’re not giving up one of our own. There has to be some other arrangement we can make. Leave the Zhang family out of this. Nothing justifies killing innocent people.”

One difference between him and Copley, though, was that his face stayed smooth and impassive. “You wish for an explanation? I believe in a better world, Captain Freeman. A world without sin. I would think that someone who has done great works such as yourself, over such a long time, would understand my point of view.”

She didn’t show on her face how upset she was at the implication that he knew about their immortality, which they’d suspected but had hoped not to be true. “We don’t threaten children.”

“And I do. If I have to.”

“This kind of reasoning is nothing we haven’t seen before. It never goes well.” Through the corner of her eye, Nile glimpsed Nicky’s thousand-yard stare and Joe rubbing his back to comfort him. Nicky had confessed to Nile, once and only once, that he still sometimes dreamed of the children who died during his army’s attack on Jerusalem, back when he was certain that he was doing this for the greater good. Seb, meanwhile, was hugging himself, whole body rigid. Joe had draped his other arm around his shoulders.

The Operative seemed to notice her looking off to the side. “I will give you an additional five hours of grace before the Zhang family has to pay the price, but only if you call your men over where I can see them.”

The trio entered the Operative’s field of vision before Nile had decided whether to agree or not. “Happy now?” Seb sneered.

In fact, the Operative smiled. “Finally. I’ve been curious for so long. I grew up on stories about you, you know, our family’s secret lore down through the generations. It’s even why I carry a sword.”

“You spectacularly missed the point,” Joe said, narrowing his eyes. “You ape some twisted echo of what we are and what we stand for, to justify your own actions. You don’t admire us. You admire an idea of your own creation.”

“The stories were right about your poetry, Yusuf.” He looked at Nicky. “Nicolo, correct? I heard you were the quiet one. Do you have anything to say?”

Nicky took a step closer to the screen. “You will live to regret what you have done, or you will die by our hands.”

The Operative showed no sign of being offended. “I’m being generous in offering to leave you alone, as well as the Zhangs, upon receiving River. I’ve lived by a point of honor not to reveal your secret to anyone outside my bloodline. This could change.”

“How many people are you going to murder so you can live in this ‘perfect world’ of yours?” Nile asked.

“Oh, I won’t live in that world. I’m a monster. What I do is evil, but it must be done. It saddens me that you can’t see how alike we are in that, but nevertheless, you are people of honor, and your faith is strong. I don’t expect you to agree immediately. Contact me again when you change your mind.” He ended the transmission.

“The fucking nerve,” Seb said, balling his hands into fists. “The fucking, fucking, fucking nerve. I can still hear Jing Mei _sobbing_.”

“Any ideas on what we’re going to do next?” Joe asked. “Sydney, 2025?”

“I don’t think that’ll work. You two know the _Serenity_ guys best. Do you think it’ll help if we get in touch with them and network?” Nile hated the idea of putting an all-mortal team in danger when their doctor wasn’t available to them, but she didn’t want to ignore potential resources either.

“Let’s ask Miranda first,” River said, crawling out from under the bed. From everyone’s reactions, it was clear that nobody had noticed her there. 

Nile had never died of a heart attack, but for a second it felt like she could. “Okay, but you are never allowed to hide like that ever again. The mind-reading isn’t your fault, but this is something you can control.”

River nodded. “Sorry, I’ll remember. I need Nicky and Simon for this.” 

“I’ll sit and brainstorm with you, Nile,” Joe offered. 

“I’ll sit with Jing Mei while you two do that,” Seb said. “I’m not up to strategizing right now.”

“That sounds like a good use of your time.” Nile patted his shoulder. Andy had told her, long ago, that being the leader would mean making difficult choices, but that was one of the very reasons she wanted Nile to take over rather than one of her older teammates. Joe and Nicky could never make a major decision without working it out between them at length and as equals, and Seb would always likely be troubled by his insecurities, but Nile had been making tough calls from the day she chose to rescue four near-strangers from a lab on her own. 

That didn’t mean she liked it.

****

“Did I disembowel you?” River asked, settling into a lotus pose on Nicky and Joe’s bed. Simon was in a nearby chair, within easy reach, with some simple paper and a pen. Nicky sat in a cross-legged pose across from her. While his flexibility was enough for his purposes (and his love’s), Nicky had never gotten the hang of the proper lotus pose. 

“Don’t think anything of it. Joe disemboweled me twice, when we were first getting to know each other, and he didn’t have the consideration of being under someone else’s control.” Nicky reached out his hands to take both of River’s. “Simon, you’re our spotter. Comfort River if she asks for you, but only if she asks. Pay attention to what we’re doing, but try to think and feel as little as possible. A good technique is thinking of something neutral and dull and writing it out in detail.”

“I’ll make lists of different anatomical terms,” Simon said, speaking to Nicky but with his gaze always on River.

That established, it was time to begin. He started with a number of affirmations and other soothing words to relax her, taking some techniques from hypnotherapy, until she seemed as ready as she could be for the opening question.“Where do you keep Miranda?”

“Everything from the Academy is in Serenity’s infirmary,” River murmured, eyes closed. “Miranda is in a very high cabinet. I can’t reach without a stepladder. She waits there.”

“Are we talking to Miranda now?”

She made a disdainful face. “That’s _really_ stupid.”

Nicky and Simon both barely suppressed a surprised laugh. Nicky pressed on. “I need you to get the stepladder and open the cabinet. What does Miranda look like right now?”

A few seconds passed before River said, “It’s a box all wrapped up in chains and barbed wire. Something oozing out. Theseus with no Ariadne is only a sacrifice. Lost in a labyrinth.”

“You’re being very brave.” He stroked her knuckles with his thumbs, trying to ground her.

“You’re being loud.”

“Sorry.” He channeled his thoughts that weren’t about the task at hand into an imagined scenario of setting up a sniper shot for some unknown target. He always found peace in that, as ironic as that might sound.

“I’m opening the -” River shuddered. “It isn’t mine. I shouldn’t have to carry it.”

“I know.”

“Old men covered in blood, never touched it but they’re drowning in it. They're in homes, they're in head, they haven't the right." She choked back tears. "Put a bullet to me.”

With grim determination, Simon muttered, “Metatarsal. Alveoli. Neutrophil.”

“That wouldn’t help anything _passerotta_ ,” Nicky said, with all the sadness and kindness he could muster. Before Seb’s sobriety, there had been multiple incidents when he or Joe had gently pried Seb’s fingers off a gun to keep him from shooting himself in drunken despair - Seb hadn’t wanted to do something like that in front of Nile, even in his worst moments. The years of Booker’s exile had been necessary for Joe and Nicky to heal from the betrayal and for Booker to evolve into the Seb they knew, but they had also been detrimental to his mental health until at least twenty years after his return. 

“Don’t make me sleep again,” River pleaded. “They lay down. Everyone just lay down.”

“Miranda?”

“On Miranda. Everyone’s _dead_.” Her eyes flew open, and she stared into Nicky’s. “I see death everywhere, I see it in every city, every building, and they’re all inside me and they’re saying nothing, nothing, make it stop - SIMON!”

Simon got his arms around her within seconds and rocked her slowly while she cried. Nicky couldn’t hear what he was saying to her in her ear, which was as it should be. 

After several minutes, River turned to Nicky and said, voice hushed, “Miranda’s a planet.”

****

After a family meeting, which included a blanket-wrapped Jing Mei and an exhausted pair of Tams, it was decided that they weren’t going to visit Miranda. At first it had seemed like a possible option, but then they’d actually looked it up. The planet was surrounded entirely by Reaver ships, which was maybe why they’d never heard of it, given the Alliance’s refusal to confirm the existence of Reavers. In any case, Immortals and Reavers were the worst mix conceivable. 

Everyone debated about alternatives until long after everyone’s coffee, tea, or cocoa had cooled. Yes, the clock was ticking, but even Jing Mei was reluctant to be hasty about this. They couldn’t even decide if they wanted _Serenity_ to be involved or not. 

“Wait, wait, wait, wait,” Seb said, interrupting Joe’s suggestion involving decoys. He couldn’t be bothered to care about manners right now. “River, darling, you got what vague information you know from the minds of members of Parliament who came to observe your ‘progress’, right? If we showed you pictures of plausible members of Parliament, ones whose departments would be relevant, could you maybe recognize any?”

Understanding flashed in Nile’s eyes. “Then have her read the mind of one in more detail. That’s what you’re saying, right?”

“I’d much rather deal with anything the Core can throw at us than Reavers. Any day of the week, month, or century.” Seb shuddered. He had been the one to come up with the idea of the playing-dead powders, given his general love-hate relationship with their inability to die, but that was meant for a last resort and only worked under the scenario of a brief Reaver raid.

“Even if we can’t get the full information, maybe that could point us in the right direction for finding some sort of records, and learn why Miranda is the key,” Joe continued.

Nicky looked at Simon. “We could use someone with expertise in sedation, paralytics, such things.”

“Any plan you agree on, I will gladly play my part,” Simon said, gripping his teacup like he might persuade it to give up its secrets. 

“Will you do it, River? It must be horribly traumatic.” Jing Mei wrapped herself more tightly in the soft blanket. Her voice wavered. “We’re not done discussing options. We still have some time before, you know, the, the, the Operative. Uh. Starts.”

River looked nervous but determined. “I’ll do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _lao ren_ \- Mandarin, "old people"
> 
> _didi_ \- Mandarin, "little brother". I'm envisioning Jing Mei as only about 2-3 years older than Simon, but I thought it'd be nice to have *him* get to have an older sibling figure for once. 
> 
> _passerotta_ \- Italian, "little sparrow", according to my research a standard term of endearment for children (please correct if I am mistaken). Here it's meant to parallel both Mal calling River "little albatross" and the statement in the Bible that God knows even when one sparrow falls.


	5. Chapter 5

“I wonder if the planet Miranda is named for the Shakespeare character?” Joe mused quietly while Nicky got into position on the rooftop where they were waiting for their target. They’d landed on Osiris five hours ago. Before touching down, Jing Mei had researched Senator Percival Largo’s schedule and movements, and according to some gossip she’d found, he spent three nights a week sneaking off to visit his mistress in a different neighborhood of Capital City that the one where he lived with his own wife and children. Joe and Seb had amused themselves while gearing up for the op by speculating what excuses Largo was giving his wife, but Seb was now with Nile for their part of the plan.

Joe’s latest remark had been for River’s benefit, an attempt to relax her. She had been ninety percent certain that Largo had been one of the members of Parliament she’d lifted _Miranda_ from, and whatever subconscious horrors that came with, but nobody wanted to take the chance of abducting the wrong government official. Therefore, she and Joe were splitting Joe’s usual role of being Nicky’s spotter. She had a pair of binoculars to confirm identity. She was wearing thin gloves and surgical mask, and had tucked her hair into a beanie to disguise her own identity, as well as wearing red-tinted glasses that would confuse cameras’ iris recognition algorithms without making it too dark for her to see well. All of them wore such glasses while in the field, unless they were on a border planet where the technology level was too low for that to be a concern. Jing Mei claimed to have disabled most of the surveillance nearby. _Most._

“ _Oh brave new world, that has such people in it,_ ” River quoted, equally quietly. Nicky could handle a hushed conversation near him while he was waiting to take a shot, but anything too boisterous might compromise his focus. “You two met Shakespeare, but I don’t see details.”

She’d explained that she didn’t automatically absorb as many thoughts and memories from the immortals as she did from regular people, which Joe suspected was because the sheer amount of memories created a sort of mental static. Just as well for their future harmony as a group, really. He flashed her a grin. “We needed to access some influential guests who often came to the Globe Theatre, and the plan ended up requiring Nicky and I to go undercover as players. Many performances of _Othello_ by the end. I was Othello, he was Desdemona. No women allowed on stage in England in those days. It was fun, though I had mixed feelings about mock-smothering him with a pillow at the climax every night.” Pretending to kill Nicky had brought back unhappy memories, but on the other hand, Nicky had been very pretty in the dress before all the stage makeup had been caked on his face. Very pretty. They'd almost gotten caught experimenting with the possibilities of a skirt hoisted up just high enough to...then Joe remembered what company he was keeping.

“I see we’ve given up on keeping River from our impure thoughts?” Nicky commented in the gentlest of reproaches. Because of course he knew where Joe's memories had headed. He shifted slightly on his elbows. The rifle which he was aiming shot tranq darts rather than bullets, and while he’d used it before, he had to compensate for various small differences.

River made a non-committal noise, continuing to peer through the binoculars. “I'm not upset, _daye._ I like them better than Jayne’s. Yours are better guarded and full of love.”

“I’m your _daye_ now?” Joe wasn’t offended about being her “uncle-who-is-father’s-older-brother”, but it was a sudden contrast to the sibling-related terms he and Nicky had been calling her in moments of affection. 

“Simon is sad when you call me sister, and I already have a dad, so I decided that’s what you are. Nicky can be _shufu_.” Then she learned forward and hissed. “That’s him.”

“The man who just got out of the car?” Joe asked, looking through his own binoculars.

“Yes.”

As he’d done thousands of times by now, Joe waited for the right moment, then whispered the code word to Nicky. When Nicky pulled the trigger, the dart sailed through the air and pierced their target's neck with exquisite precision.

“Your move, over,” Joe told Nile over their comm system. Nicky and Joe both had a transmitter/receiver nestled in one ear, but there hadn’t been time to get another one for River yet. Though she, in a sense, had her own comm system.

“We copy,” Nile replied. The van that Seb had acquired pulled up right next to where the senator had slumped to the ground, and Nile and Seb efficiently bundled him into it. They’d be picking up the other three next, to hurry back to the ship. 

“My turn,” River sighed.

“You won’t be alone,” Nicky said, getting to his feet.

“Though we will continue to make an effort to contain ourselves." Joe was rewarded with a tiny smile from his, apparently, _zhinu_.”

****

After giving Senator Largo an antidote for the total knockout drug Nicky had shot Largo with, Simon placed him under twilight sedation instead. He wasn’t an anesthesiologist, but he could make do in a pinch, and he knew this would make him pliant, suggestible, and unlikely to remember anything that happened while still being conscious enough for River to read. The black market medical supply shop where the immortals had stopped for more painkillers had thankfully offered what Simon needed for this as well.

“He’s strapped down too, right?” Jing Mei asked. She was huddled on the floor of the bridge, despite Seb and Nile offering to let her sit in either the pilot or co-pilot chairs. And she wouldn’t stop typing and scrolling and searching, searching, always searching. Simon had some idea of how she might be feeling. To make things worse, since River needed everyone except Nicky to be as far away as possible to avoid interference, this monster in a cravat was being held in the room furthest away from the bridge, which was Jing Mei’s. 

Simon took a seat on the floor next to her. “Yes. She is.”

“He’ll be a good hostage for plan B,” Nile said.

Seb was scanning the monitors for any sign that their ship’s hiding place in the parking lot of an abandoned factory had been discovered. A Leafhopper class straddled the definition of a ship and a shuttle, which meant it could fly as unobtrusively as a shuttle and tuck itself into places meant for long-haul hovertrucks. “It’d be pretty satisfying to put him through more distress, I’m not going to lie.”

Plan B was to offer Largo as an exchange for Jing Mei’s family, and threaten to kill him otherwise. Simon had never been accessory to murder before, unless you counted patching up Mal, Zoe, and Jayne after they’d definitely killed people, but he thought of the senator watching River be warped and tortured into someone’s idea of a weapon. Watching. Approving. It made part of Simon itch to be the one to kill him himself.

Simon watched Joe on the far side of the room, praying on a thin plastic mat with a printed design and facing a long-lost holy city of Earth-That-Was. As far as Simon could tell, Joe didn’t keep up the full prayer schedule that the most devout of his faith did, which would have been hard given his lifestyle. Regardless, Simon envied that he had something beyond the here and now to rely on.

Though Jing Mei's own belief system apparently included ancestor worship, which had to be compounding the pressure on her. Her voice was stretched taut when she asked Simon, "Do think _Serenity_ will come through? Do you think they can rescue my kidnapped family in time?"

"Would you like to hear about the night they saved me and River from being burned at the stake despite having already taken off hours ago in an emergency?" Simon asked. Jing Mei's eyes widened and she nodded.

Joe got up and started rolling up his mat. He looked tired, but his eyes crinkled with his smile. "I think all of us would."

****

River’s tranquil devastation when Nicky eventually escorted her onto the bridge reminded Seb of how Quynh looked when she first surprised him in his little misery cave in Paris. The difference being that Seb was afraid _for_ River, not of her. (Not that it had been Quynh’s fault that she’d literally been the woman of his nightmares for centuries.) Her voice was pleasant and steady. Her spine stood straight and sure. Her hands manipulated the touchscreen map Jing Mei had pulled up for her with grace and dexterity. Behind her eyes, though, was someone on the edge of despair, madness, or both. Simon had already hugged and talked to her before going to monitor the "patient", and right now Joe and Nicky were in easy embracing-range of her, so Seb just tried to think warm thoughts in River’s direction to counteract whatever was trying to hollow her out. 

“It’s only forty-two minutes away in a Leafhopper following traffic laws, twenty-five in a Leafhopper that isn’t,” River continued. “Some of it’s above-ground, but the important rooms are below. In the third sub-basement, there is a data drive. Miranda will speak….and...we’ll...we’ll see Cassandra die for her.”

“Cassandra?” Jing Mei asked.

“She was a girl in an old story cursed to always tell the truth but never have anyone believe her,” Seb told her. He could sympathize. Unlike Nile, he’d been “the baby” of the group back when it was very difficult to look up references the others made, and had been embarrassed to be constantly asking, no matter how pleasant they were in replying. Though between River’s genius intellect, accelerated education, and ability to simply pick facts out of other people’s heads, he didn’t see himself ever needing to clarify things to her. 

“Wrong,” River said, looking at Seb. “You’re wrong. But that lesson is for later in the curriculum, after the test.”

“What?” Seb asked, with a hint of alarm.

River dove into discussing infiltration plans with Nile and acted like she hadn’t said anything at all. Fortunately for Seb’s assessment of his own ears, Simon got his attention and mouthed, “ _Sorry, she does that._ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Daye" is for an uncle who is one's father's elder brother, and "shufu" is for an uncle who is one's father's younger brother. Yes, that does mean Seb can have his own uncle term when River gets around to it. Note that these terms can vary by region. 
> 
> _zhinu_ \- Mandarin, "niece"
> 
> Not only do TOG and Disney's recent live-action Aladdin share an actor, a character in the animated Aladdin and in Othello share a name! Also, Othello and Joe share a "North African military man and his white spouse suffer because of lies from someone they trust" situation. Desdemona totally has a full line after the stage directions imply she should already be dead, by the way.


	6. Chapter 6

“Captain Freeman isn’t available, Mal, but she said Seb could speak for her.” Nile, River, Joe, and Nicky had left to investigate River’s lead, while Simon was here to monitor the hostage’s induced unconsciousness. Seb was here as guard/protection. But having this conversation that could be potentially intercepted was risky enough without Simon revealing those details.

“No need for any negotiation, doctor. Just letting you know we got the cargo you needed us to pick up.” Mal didn’t wink, but it was in his voice. Simon sagged with relief knowing that Jing Mei’s family was in safe hands. “Been told to pass on the message that there ‘aren’t any grudges here.’”

In the pilot’s chair, typing a message into a communicator, Seb snorted. He looked up and said, “I’ll convey that to the relevant party, Captain Reynolds. You’ll be hearing from us.” 

Kaylee poked her head in frame, a mixture of delight and concern. “Are you okay, Simon? Do you have clothes to wear? Looks like you got something to keep you warm, at least.”

“It’s Joe’s spare jacket. Nicky’s offered to lend me other clothes if I need them. We’re a similar size,” Simon reassured her. His original outfit was still clean enough to manage, by the standards of the life he’d fallen into, and he’d borrowed loose pants from Nicky for the scant scraps of rest he’d managed so far. It occurred to him that if anyone had told him a year ago that he’d be sleeping in clothing lent by someone his baby sister had recently gutted with a stolen knife in a bar fight, he’d have pointed them to the drug overdose department of the hospital. It also occurred to him that he was being overly clinical again, so he softened his tone and added, “I miss you.”

“He’s learning!” Wash cheered from somewhere in the background. Simon felt his face go slightly pink. 

“I miss you too! I got to do some real shiny things with locks I’d been wantin' to try when, uh, picking up the cargo.” It was obvious that Kaylee was going to say more, but Mal gestured for her to stop.

“Alright, lovebirds, we’ll head to the drop-off point…”

Seb spoke up. “Actually, there’s been a slight change of plan. We need you to temporarily hold the cargo on Kalidasa, and visit our mutual contact in the area.”

Jing-Mei had filled Simon in on the details he needed to understand this conversation before she left with the others. Kalidasa was the planet around which Mr. Universe’s ion-clouded Cortex relay station orbited. Like a lighthouse keeper on Earth-That-Was, Mr. Universe cared for and maintained the station as his primary occupation, while also taking advantage of his access to the broadwaves to pursue his less legal activities as a Signaler. Other than shipments of food and supplies and long-distance communication with his handful of friends, the man seemed to be totally isolated. River, though, had indicated two things she knew was necessary for her operation to be successful, but wouldn’t say why. One was that Jing Mei needed to be in the field, which was rare. The other was that Mr. Universe should be protected.

Mal raised his eyebrows, but nodded. “If we don’t hear from you within a week, we’ll take the cargo to our original dropoff.”

Seb turned off his communicator and set it aside. “Good.” If everything went wrong, the Zhangs had friends who owned a ranch on Persephone and who would let them lay low there for a time, no questions asked. Unfortunately, it wasn’t on the way to Station 2E like Kalidasa was, and there was no time. The immortals had been to Kalidasa and assured Jing Mei that there were reasonably comfortable places to hide there.

The transmission ended, and Simon turned to Seb. “What was that about grudges?”

“Jing Mei’s name can either mean ‘long-cherished wish’ or ‘long-held grudge’ depending on how it’s written,” Seb explained, with a hint of a fond smile. Simon hadn’t failed to notice Seb’s wedding ring and suddenly wondered if he’d been a father at some point. “Her younger brother teases her about it when she gets cranky.”

“Right. I need to check on the senator. What should I do after that?”

Seb shrugged. “Rest? We’re lying in wait in case I need to fly us out of here or go pick up the rest of the group.”

“What are we going to do if the authorities figure out who we captured?” Now that the Zhangs were safe, Largo was meant to be their bargaining chip to escape whatever mess this operation was going to turn into. 

“I’ll handle that. It’s best for you to continue to stay under the radar.” Seb searched Simon’s face. “Your sister can take care of herself, and the others won’t let her need to anyway. I’m even not too worried about Jing Mei in their hands. And the body armor we make her wear under her clothes if she leaves the ship on a job.”

“You must think of us as children.” It didn’t sound as bitter as it might have, before time away from Nicky and Joe had given Simon perspective. More matter-of-fact. 

“Yes and no. You’ve had less of a chance to learn, grow, and make mistakes you have to fix, but I suppose you could say that lights which only last a short time burn all the brighter.” Seb looked out the windows and their view of the interior of a crumbling industrial parking garage. There wasn’t much to look at now that it was so late at night. “The impact normal people have on us isn’t less for the difference in lifespan.”

“That was eloquent,” Simon said, to deflect from the weight behind it. He didn’t know what else to say. 

Seb laughed, and made a gesture like he was reaching for a hip flask he’d forgotten wasn’t there. His hand ended up roaming and grasping a tiny plastic hippo instead. “Well, I’ve spent over six hundred years in Joe’s company.”

Just then, an ear-splitting proclamation reverberated through the ship, making the tiny vessel shake with the force of it. Flashing lights from all directions accompanied it. _LEAFHOPPER CLASS _THE SCYTHIAN_ , YOU ARE BOUND BY LAW AND COMMANDED TO EXIT THE SHIP WITH YOUR HANDS IN THE AIR. YOU HAVE THIRTY SECONDS TO COMPLY BEFORE EMPLOYMENT OF LETHAL FORCE._

Simon was frozen, but Seb looked more annoyed than anything. He turned on the comms. “This is the pilot of _The Scythian_. Are you aware that we have a high-ranking member of Parliament captive onboard?”

_YOUR CAPTURE OR TERMINATION IS OF SUFFICIENTLY HIGH PRIORITY TO MAKE THAT AN ACCEPTABLE LOSS._

“Well, fuck,” Seb said. He turned off the comms. “Okay, they don’t necessarily know who I am or I can’t die, and if they don’t, this is the plan…”

_COME OUT AND TALK, MONSIEUR LE LIVRE AND DOCTOR SIMON TAM. YOU WON’T COME TO HARM._

“Son of a bitch,” both men chorused. 

***

“Where are we going?” Jing Mei asked River after River had directed her to drive into a creepy neighborhood full of run-down, gutted ‘scrapers and abandoned storefronts. Jing Mei was driving because her ident card would still raise the least alarm if they got pulled over. The kidnapping of her family had the air of a covert tactic that ordinary law enforcement wouldn’t know about. They were in a different van than the one they’d used to transport the senator.

“Told you the address. The box opens one panel at a time,” River said quietly. To keep River as safe as possible, both from notice and her own distress, she was in the back tucked between Joe and Nicky rather than sitting in a separate row. Nile knew from experience how comforting that could be.

Nile, meanwhile, was in the passenger seat with three guns and her antique Marine Corps Fighting Utility knife on her person. She couldn’t help but run her fingers over the handle of the knife, over and over, one of two sentimental items she’d brought with her from Earth. (The other one was a cross necklace Andy casually tossed in her direction after she lost her original one, and refused to be thanked.) Going into a potential fight on so little intel had her on edge. Nicky’s testimonial about the extent and value of River’s abilities, along with Nile’s desire to find some way out of the tangle they’d ended up in for River’s sake, were the two things that had made her accept such a vague plan.

They reached the gate of a compound with a nondescript gray building. Barbed wire wound around the top of the walls. Two guards flanked each side of the gate, four in total, and Nile could pick out the likely stations of more. 

“Are you sure about this, River?” Nicky asked, voice steady.

River closed her eyes for a moment, tilting her head like she was listening to something. Then she leaned forward. “Jing Mei, a guard is going to ask why we’re here after hours. Tell him that we’re here to repair the climate control system in the records room and you’ll need to park in the third sub-basement so you won’t have to haul the equipment far. The code is 1715-jackal.”

Not only were they allowed in after Jing Mei followed River’s instructions, the guard gave them a smile and a wave. Nile hoped he wouldn’t come to harm because of this mission.

The underground parking lot was empty. Joe hoisted a large duffle bag over his shoulder that contained his and Nicky’s swords as well as guns, ammo, and other things they hoped not to need. Nicky stayed close to both Joe and River, maybe thinking good thoughts in her direction or something. Nile wasn’t totally clear on that. For now, Nile’s focus was on Jing Mei, with her backpack full of her Source box and various other gadgets. Jing Mei’s body armor could only stop small caliber bullets and minor laser burns. It was Nile’s turn to be prepared to take a hit for her at any moment. Every one of them had, on the few occasions they’d needed her to come with them rather than stay safe on the ship, and every one of them would again.

River pulled on a pair of thin gloves to avoid leaving fingerprints, then entered the numbers to open the heavy steel doors. They found themselves in a large room, dim even with the lights flicked on, full of rows and rows of data disks on shelves. Along one wall was a set of three tv monitors, five computers, and a holo projector. All were off.

“Should I get those running?” Jing Mei asked, restrained excitement in her voice. 

“ _Hao_ ,” River confirmed, distracted by the many shelves. “It’s one of these.”

They settled into a system where Jing Mei worked on the computing setup - cracking the passwords required some device she had programmed herself and needed a few minutes per - while the three older immortals picked up data discs, read the labels, and waited for River to confirm whether that was the right one or not. River was doing silent ballet moves in the middle of what open space they had, with her eyes squeezed shut, saying nothing but “no” after each query. 

“Sorry to interrupt,” Jing Mei said, her voice higher-pitched than usual, “but I got two messages from Seb. I didn’t notice the first one because I was busy driving. It says my family is safe.”

“Good news,” Nicky said, turning for a moment to give her one of his quarter-smiles. Joe did a similar move but outright beamed.

“Yeah, but then I got another message a few minutes later saying _Mombasa 2123_. What does that mean?”

Nile’s heart started beating faster, and she saw Joe and Nicky’s expressions harden into grim determination. “It means that our ship is compromised and he and Simon are on their way.”

Jing Mei’s eyes widened, but she stayed calm, at least on the outside. “I think these monitors are security feeds and you’ll be able to see them coming. I could use someone to watch them for me.”

The group pivoted: Nile watching the security feeds, Nicky and River searching for the disc in tandem, and Joe handing out weapons. Joe’s scimitar was short enough to draw from a scabbard on his back, but Nicky had to sheathe his longsword on his hip to be prepared for battle rather than simply transporting it. Nile accepted a sabre similar to the ceremonial Non-Commissioned Officer’s sword she’d once owned, but one actually meant for combat. After newly-immortal Nile had expressed interest in a longer bladed weapon than her knife, Andy had suggested learning several but focusing on a style she had an emotional connection with. 

“You wanted me to pack this,” Joe said to River, handing her a small one-handed battle axe to attach to her belt in addition to the gun and machete she’d already holstered there. 

“Quynh liked axes like this.” River said, matter-of-factly, securing it. Nile was coming to recognize the soft tone and slow cadence of when River was reciting something she’d picked up from someone else’s mind. “It reminded her of weapons she’d used when she was young.”

Thoughtfully, Nicky picked up another disc. “Her mind would have been difficult for you to be around, River, after all that happened to her. But you would have liked her heart.”

Nile had to look away from the raw emotion on both Joe and Nicky’s faces. Fortunately, this was in time to see Seb and Simon zooming _over_ the gate on Dulcinea, Seb’s beloved hovercycle. 

River gasped, “Simon!” and ran out the door. Nicky ran after her. Joe looked like he was about to follow, but Jing Mei said, “You need to come see this.”

She’d just managed to get the third monitor working, which had proven more of a challenge than the others. Nile could guess the reason now. The monitor showed a grid of ten tiny cells. Each one contained a captive in the ragged shreds of hospital scrubs, and each was heavily shackled and strapped to a bed, hooked up to nutritional drips and catheters and all sorts of machines tracking their vital signs. They all had bandages wrapped tightly around their mouths. Two of them were sleeping. The other eight had their eyes wide open and were fighting their restraints with a level of rage that she’d never seen. Regardless of whether they were awake or asleep, though, the mutilated faces and damaging body modifications pointed to one conclusion.

“ _Wallahi,_ please tell me those are not Reavers,” Joe whispered.

“They must be studying them here,” Nile said. “Let’s hope it’s how to protect people from them, not how to weaponize them.”

“Or how to make more,” Joe said darkly.

“Don’t say stuff like that,” Jing Mei snapped. Joe put a hand on her shoulder in apology. 

River, Nicky, Simon, and Seb rushed back into the room and locked the door behind him. Seb’s shirt and pants were torn and bloody, but he’d thrown on the leather jacket Joe had lent to Simon. Dark pants could hide a lot. “I’m sorry to escalate the situation, but my communicator was lost in the explosion and we really needed to warn you that the jig is up. The Operator already knew you were coming here, he knew the address, but he wanted to see what you were going to do.”

“There was an explosion?” Nile asked.

Simon was clinging to a field med kit that they usually reserved for rescue missions, hugging it like a security blanket. “He blew up the ship. If Seb hadn’t tackled me and taken the brunt of the shrapnel, I would be in the hospital under Alliance supervision right now. This was the only thing I thought to grab, I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Nile said. Her heart ached at the loss of yet another temporary safe haven, but there were plenty of other ships out there. “We’ll figure it out, Seb. Nothing on the ship was irreplaceable except you two.”

Seb smiled weakly. “Yes, Captain.”

“We need to find the disc but it’s taking too slow. River ran her hands through her hair, frustrated.

“Maybe you’re thinking too much, _meimei_ ,” Simon said. 

“Maybe.” River closed her eyes, but instead of dancing, she ran her hands over the racks, murmuring _don’t look, don’t look,_ until she settled on one, labeled _M. Planetary Assessment_. She took it to the holo projector and turned it on.

The image of an exhausted, frightened woman in an unfamiliar uniform appeared in front of them, and in turn, she showed images of streets full of desiccated corpses. _“These are some of the images we’ve gathered, and as you can see, it isn’t what we thought. There’s been no war here. No terraforming event. The environment is stable.”_

She went on to report that the Alliance had experimented with a drug they called the Pax, something to make the population peaceful and meek. Instead, the people had stopped not only fighting, but eating, working, talking...until they all lied down and died. Ten million of them.

Jing Mei was crying. Nile put her arms around her. She could see Joe burying his face in Nicky’s shoulder and Nicky rubbing his back. Simon’s eyes were on River, two feet away from him but strangely distant in her horror, rather than the projection. Seb looked lost, so Nile beckoned him over so that she and Jing Mei could provide him with some grounding touch too.

It was a good thing that Nile did, because there was a crashing sound from the recording as the woman continued: _“I have to be quick. About a tenth of a percent of the population had the opposite reaction. Their aggression increased. Beyond madness. Well...they’ve killed most of us. And not just killed. They’ve done things…”_

At the part where she was attacked by a Reaver on screen, Seb lurched forward and punched the machine. Repeatedly. Blooding his right fist until Jing Mei shouted at him to stop it before he damaged the disc. “And I don’t like you hurting yourself, either!”

River vomited in a corner. Simon gave her some water from the med kit, and they talked in voices too faint for the others to catch. Nile thought about following her example, but she held it together.

“What’s the point of anything we do?” Seb asked, almost like a snarl, as he removed the disc to pass to Jing Mei, then put his hands in his pockets.“What’s the point, if the powerful can do things like this, and sweep them away with no accountability?”

“We will make them accountable,” Nicky said, with his usual conviction. Nile was still grateful for it after five hundred years. “We will show all humanity their shame, so they can never try such a thing again.”

Apparently continuing his thought, Joe asked, “Jing Mei, is there a way you can broadcast this message from this building?”

“You guys don’t want to hold this disc as our own ransom out of here, right?” Jing Mei asked. She looked at their faces. “I didn’t think you would, but I felt like someone had to ask.”

“I know you didn’t sign up to give up your life for our battles,” Nile said. She didn’t want to lose Jing Mei, but she also couldn’t use the information as a bargaining chip.

“I signed up to support you in everything you do.” Jing Mei looked at Seb. “You’re not as tech-optimized as I am, but you’re second-best in this group. With a facility doing classified research like this, there’s got to be offices with equipment to send high-speed communication to Parliament on any planet. Which means we can rig something to patch through to Mr. Universe, and he’ll broadwave it from there.”

Simon cleared his throat. “Speaking of things someone has to say, we’re both surrounded and heavily pursued. What are we going to do about that?”

“Aim to misbehave,” River said. It sounded like a quote, but Nile didn’t recognize it.

Nile’s jaw set with determination. “Aim to get this done and get out of this together.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Hao_ \- Mandarin, "good"
> 
>  _Wallahi_ \- Arabic, "I swear to God"
> 
> The axe - Quynh connection is inspired by my research on weapons in ancient Vietnam, as well as providing an alternate explanation for how River gets a cool axe like she does in the original film. 
> 
> Yes, the hovercycle being named Dulcinea is a _Don Quixote_ reference.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter, we will get to what the Serenity crew is up to, don't you worry. 
> 
> I have raised the rating to M because this chapter contains more violence and some gore, though it is still less graphic than TOG movie.

Alarms started to blare within a few minutes of the group watching the Miranda report. Joe finished distributing all the weapons he'd brought, resulting in everyone except for Jing Mei being decently armed. She wasn't comfortable carrying a gun or a sword, but she turned on her pair of self-defense bracelets that she'd augmented until they could give anyone within half a meter of her a non-lethal, yet truly nasty shock. Jing Mei also managed to pull up a map of the building on the one computer, which allowed for a quick group decision on where to head next.

Nicky pressed a brief kiss to Joe’s lips before running towards the nearest stairwell. Joe clasped the back of his neck as their mouths met. There wasn't time for something more lingering, though both of them would have benefited from a tight embrace after being rattled by learning of such a massive atrocity. With the others in a tight group, they ran.

The alarms were interrupted by the first, unsurprising ultimatum. 

_SCYTHIAN CREW, YOU ARE ORDERED TO LAY DOWN ARMS AND EXIT THE BUILDING._

“Do you think that sounds a bit like Copley very-Junior?” Seb asked. There hadn’t been a sword available for him, since Joe hadn’t expected him to join the field team, but he now had an extra gun and two extra knives to work with. He had his hands in his pockets, likely each clenched around a weapon. Since going sober, his hands sometimes shook a little just before a fight. 

“He’s here,” River said, voice monotone. She was sticking close to her brother in a mutually protective way. “He might still let the rest of you go if you gave me up.”

“Don’t ever say that,” Simon snapped.

Nile nodded. “No one left behind. From my first fight with this family to the last.”

_THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE TO SURRENDER PEACEFULLY._

“We’re not really known for that,” Joe drawled. Nicky quirked a tiny fraction of a smile.

That smile faded into horror at what happened next. Usually Nile would lead, but Jing Mei had managed to download an interactive version of the map, complete with real-time updates based on the security system, onto a handheld device that none of the immortals were very good with. Thus it made sense for her to lead. By sheer coincidence, Jing Mei, Seb, and Joe were the ones closer to the stairwell when a steel wall slid out of the ceiling and slammed down with the swiftness of a guillotine. Joe might have been crushed by it if Nicky hadn’t shoved him away at the last second. He’d always had slightly faster reflexes. 

“I’m sorry!” Nicky called out, every muscle clenched tight. Even if he believed he’d done the right thing, it felt like a small betrayal. 

Joe’s reply was too muffled to hear, but after a moment of mutual realization, he knocked on the thick wall in Morse code instead: _W-E-W-I-L-L-C-O-N-T-I-N-U-E-M-Y-H-E-A-R-T_

Nicky knocked back: _S-E-E-Y-O-U-S-O-O-N-M-Y-L-O-V-E_ “Soon” was relative for people like them, so he didn’t feel like he was making promise he couldn’t keep regardless of how this fight turned out. 

“They’re dividing us up to make it easier to take us down,” Nile said grimly. “Are you with us, Nicky?”

“Yes, Captain,” he said, turning away from the wall despite his reluctance. 

River cocked her head, as if listening, and handed her brother one of her guns. “They’re coming. A lot of them. Simon, stay by the wall and stay down. Out of the way. Don’t draw attention. _Dong ma?_ ”

Simon nodded, his face pale. “I’ve never shot anyone.”

“If you shoot any of us by accident, it’s not the end of the world,” Nicky said, trying to encourage him.

River drew a gun in one hand and a machete in the other. When she started counting down, Simon obediently took as much cover as he could and Nicky and Nile got into their battle stances. “Five...four...three...two…”

That’s when what seemed like a whole platoon of Alliance soldiers - not mere security guards, actual Alliance soldiers in uniforms resembling ones from the war - started pouring in from around the nearest corner. Nicky was the only one of the trio who was currently carrying a laser pistol in addition to a gun that used more traditional ammunition, because they were so expensive and highly regulated compared to the other style. He made his shots count. As they were wearing full body armor, the only guaranteed successes were shots to the head. 

There was only so much mere shooting at a distance that three people could effectively manage against so many, so in their usual style, the immortals charged into the fray after some initial thinning out of the horde. River integrated herself well into Nicky and Nile’s teamwork despite being entirely new to it, dancing through the melee like a rapid stream finding the best path downhill. She also seemed constantly aware of any danger to Simon and took more than one laser burn for him. 

The soldiers just kept pouring in, and while Nicky’s sword was being drenched in plenty of blood, only being able to kill those in reach at the same time as constantly healing from injuries was inefficient. Normally, as they ran out of ammunition or battery, the group would pick up weapons from their fallen foes and use those instead. However, Nicky found out that none of the guns he looted seemed to respond to him. Nile was having the same problem.

Then he saw River slice the right thumb off the soldier she’d stolen a gun from, and press it against a specific point while using her own fingers to handle aiming and firing otherwise. The weapons were coded to each soldier’s fingerprint. Nicky copied her right away, and Nile joined in as soon as she noticed. 

A number of fallen enemies later, though, the Alliance guns stopped working entirely. All of them. The handful of soldiers who were still alive seemed surprised and horrified, especially upon realizing that they couldn’t get out the way they had come in. All of them were trapped in here together, and Nile and Nicky and River made short work of them with blades.

The voice from the overhead speaker was now actually speaking, rather than intoning demands. Now it was clearly the voice of the Operative. _“Very impressive work. I didn't expect to need to disable their weapons remotely to avoid giving you the upper hand.”_

“Want us to surrender now?” Nile asked the nearest security camera as she wiped blood off her face.

_“I’m afraid that the security footage I’m watching is visual only and with poor resolution, so whatever you said has escaped me. Fortunately, my negotiations aren’t with you any longer, they are with your three cohorts I am currently standing in front of.”_

“Asshole wanted us to run out of ammo before making that threat, whatever it is,” Nile said under her breath.

In case his Yusuf could see it, in case the sight of Nicky himself was being used to manipulate him, Nicky used extra-broad gestures to sign a few words in a dialect of sign language they both knew. _Do not decide out of fear for me, but for what is right._

The silence that followed stretched on for what seemed like eons. Then River clutched at her head and screamed. 

****

Joe had died at least three times on the journey of cutting through enemies to reach the broadwaving equipment they needed. Jing Mei had taken a few hits to the body armor under her clothes but was otherwise unscathed. So that she could use both bracelets to defend herself, she’d given the disc for Joe to carry in one of the zippered pockets of his tactical vest. Seb hadn’t died at all, though he’d been grazed by a laser to the upper left arm. The good thing about laser burns was the cauterization effect that kept blood from getting everywhere, but every once in a while the right kind of clothing could catch fire from them. It might be petty and overly optimistic, but Joe would like his jacket back at some point in salvageable condition. 

(Thinking about the jacket was better than thinking about Nicky fighting a similar ambush as the one Joe, Seb, and Jing Mei had just contended with. It didn’t matter that he knew Nicky was every bit the warrior he was. It only helped a little that Nile was with him. Any death of Nicky’s was a curse, and any death where Joe couldn’t be by his side was thrice cursed.)

Here they were at last: a nondescript office with sickly bright lighting once the switches were flipped, full of desks and chairs, a large screen embedded in the wall, and a central computer unit waiting to accept the drive. There was even a water cooler off to the side. Joe distantly felt thirsty at the sight of it, but they could attend to that later. Seb and Joe locked and barred the door behind them and moved towards 

That was when a closet door opened and the Operative emerged, looking calm and even somewhat welcoming, as if they’d run into him at a tea house. Seb stepped between the Operative and Jing Mei and flicked the safety off the only gun with any bullets he had left. Joe moved to cover another angle and drew his sword. Jing Mei flinched, but kept working on turning everything on. 

The Operative said, “Show footage, camera nineteen,” in a loud, clear voice, and the screen on the wall turned on. It showed Nicky, Nile, River, and Simon in a hallway full of dead bodies. Everyone but Simon was drenched in blood, but they all seemed whole.

“You have done many great things, but this is enough, Mr. Al-Kaysani. I need you to hand the disc over.”

The fact that the Operative knew Joe was the one holding the disc suggested he’d been spying on them very closely, which didn’t improve Joe’s state of mind. “We know the secret now, the one that was causing River such torment, even deep in her mind. The whole ‘verse needs to know it too. Only then will she be whole and justice done.”

“You don’t even know what’s on that disc, do you?” Seb said slowly, with a sort of exhausted awe behind his words, like he was tired of being surprised. “Maybe you saw us watching it, but you didn’t hear what the poor woman said.”

“Secrets aren’t my business. Keeping them is.” He spoke like this was the most rational thing in the world. “You may have noticed that this facility keeps a number of live Reavers on hand for testing purposes. They are in good health and with the usual...disposition...that Reavers possess. Give me the disc, and you will all be taken into regular custody. _If I do not command otherwise_ within the next two minutes, the Reavers will be allowed into that hallway to do as they please for a few hours, and the footage kept for study. Eventually, they will be sedated. Then whoever is still alive will be retrieved and taken into custody.”

Joe’s blood ran cold. He could barely hear the Operative’s greeting towards the others downstairs through the roaring of his own heartbeat. Nicky’s message telling him not to decide out of fear for him didn’t help at all. It wasn’t as if Joe were incapable of allowing Nicky to come to harm for the sake of a mission. Hundreds of times, Joe had agreed to plans that required Nicky’s peril and pain, and vice versa. When the cause was worthy. This was a worthy cause, worthy of all manner of sacrifice, but Reavers were an entirely different level of price to force his-moon-his soul-his-everything to pay. And then there was Nile, whom he had Nicky had tried so hard over the centuries to shield from the worst of torture and captivity because she was their little sister and they owed her everything. The idea of her hope and courage being torn to shreds at the hands of people reduced to worse than beasts. Then there was River, the brilliant and wonderful River who had already been tortured so much already. Not to forget Simon, whose devotion and sense of duty stood out even among all the many people Joe had met over the centuries.

“Well?” the Operative asked. 

Joe tried to respond, but for once, he had no words. 

“ _Je suis vraiment désolé pour le dérangement,”_ Seb said, and shot Joe in the head and chest multiple times. _Sorry for the inconvenience._ The nerve. 

“What the FUCK, Booker?” Joe shouted when he came back to life and scrambled to his feet.

“I’m sorry, but to be fair, you were dithering entirely too much and I couldn’t risk you accepting his demands,” Seb said. He had a lot more blood on him than he did before, but he had subdued the Operative and was nearly done tying him to a chair with what looked like a combination of zip ties and extension cords. Joe’s scimitar was resting on a nearby table, suggesting that Seb had grabbed it and used it. While the need was rare, the immortals did have blanket permission to borrow each other’s signature weapons in a dire emergency. The Operative was conscious but looked dazed. His own sword had been flung to the other side of the room. “Are you ready to send the data?”

Jing Mei placed the disc in the tray, where mechanical fingers grasped it and drew it inwards. “I haven’t been able to get through to him or the Serenity crew to talk, but that might be because we’re so far away and the orbits aren’t at ideal alignment. I’ll get a received confirmation if it goes through. I hope it goes through. If it doesn’t, I have a contact I can try, but I’m not totally sure she’s still alive, gorram it.”

“I’ve spent considerable resources ensuring it won’t,” the Operative said. “Your two minutes are nearly up.”

“You know what your problem is?” Seb asked. “Single-mindedness. You have a goal, and you are so devoted to your goal that you won’t even consider that the harm you’re doing vastly outweighs the benefits of the goal. Believe me, I can recognize the symptoms.”

“Call it off and I won’t slice you to ribbons,” Joe growled, approaching the Operative.

Seb wavered on his feet, as if drunk, though there was no way he could be. “I can think of no worse torment than being so single-minded as you are, you ghost who has come to haunt me, and then realizing how catastrophically wrong you are and having to live with it. Jing Mei, show him what he truly serves. Show him his ‘world without sin’.”

“I’d make you watch this every waking moment for years if I could,” Jing Mei hissed, and pressed play. 

Joe was so fascinated by the steadily growing horror and remorse in the Operative’s eyes, even as the rest of his face stayed neutral, that he failed to notice that Seb had lain down on the floor partway through. Jing Mei had noticed seconds before he did and was on her knees at his side. 

“What’s wrong?” Joe called out, not wanting to leave the Operative unattended despite his concern. 

Whatever Seb said was too soft for Joe to catch. Jing Mei cried, “He isn’t healing!”

********************************************

_Reavers._

They’re made up of rage, can’t shut them out can’t shut them out -

Look with your eyes. Can’t see them yet. Listen with your ears. 

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

“Are you okay, _meimei_? Can you hear me, _meimei_? I’m here. Simon’s here.”

 _Shufu_ and _ayi_ are trying to find a way out through the ceiling, hoping to crawl through heating/cooling vents. Won’t work for Simon, would scald him. So it’s irrelevant. Except the inner sky doesn’t like their defiance and enough volts go through Nicky that he falls to the floor dead. Horribly charred dead, blackened skin dead, smelling like roast pork, taking a long time to open his eyes and longer after that to finish healing. That kind of dead. Simon wants to give him synth-morphine when he comes back to life, but even Simon feels sick as he gets closer. 

Nile is praying in her mind, and her vial also has a tiny gold cross on it. If Nicky stays dead (or plays dead, remember the vial, always wear your vial), the Reavers won’t hurt him, at least until it wears off. It won’t last forever, and they will wake up in chains if they don’t wake up as prey. River has brought pain on everyone, one way or another, and maybe Miranda was meant to stay in her coffin under the sea…

River doesn’t know what she’s saying, not even to herself, but the Reavers are getting louder.  
Simon puts an arm around her. He sounds sick and sad. “Mei mei, if you see Kaylee again, and...and I don’t...tell her that -”

Something that isn’t peace, but could perhaps be said to share the same genus, fills River’s veins. She shushes Simon. “You take care of me, Simon. You’ve always taken care of me. My turn.”

“What are you doing?” Nile asks as River readies her axe in one hand and her machete in the other.

“Doing some good,” River says. Then runs towards her fear. 

*************************************************

Seb, hey, I need to tell you a story. Don’t try to sit up. I can tell it in just a few sentences. 

It wasn’t that strange for a Chinese woman to fall in love with a foreign merchant in the early 20th century, but later, under Mao, having a European surname would have gotten you into big trouble. You know how my name means Long-Cherished Wish, but only if you write it a certain way? If you write Zhang a certain way, it means “sheet of paper”. 

You see? Squeeze my hand if you see. 

I’m sorry I didn’t tell you before. When you told me about your sons, it made me worry I might reopen old wounds. But that’s the real reason why I looked for all of you in the first place. That _bende ren_ over there isn’t the only one with a claim to family stories.For him, it isn’t a spiritual matter. For me, it is. We venerate our ancestors. I grew up burning incense to you, in case that would please you somewhere out there. “Frenchman who was in the army who can’t die and is probably really sad” wasn’t much to go on, but I managed it. I got a wonderful job and new family out of it. 

I’m really glad I met you. Please keep breathing. One more for me, _yeye_. There is literally a world-class trauma surgeon downstairs. Give him a chance to do his thing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> River refers to Nicky and Nile as uncle and auntie in her head, and at the end, Jing Mei addresses Seb as her paternal grandfather. You just need to add in about 750 years' worth of "greats". She also calls the Operative a fool.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've decided that Jing Mei's family follows the traditional Chinese naming convention of surname first, but she still just goes by "Jing Mei" with friends. 
> 
> This chapter contains a brief contemplation of what Reavers do to people, and a non-graphic mention of giving blood.

“I don’t see why we gotta go so much out of our gorram way just on _The Scythian’s_ say-so,” Jayne grumbled. Everyone was gathered around Wash in the pilot’s seat, watching their progress through the view-obscuring ion cloud surrounding Mr. Universe’s little satellite. The six people they’d had onboard were now safely stashed away on a quiet planet, so only Mal, Zoe, Wash, Kaylee, and Jayne were onboard now. “The Zhangs were polite passengers, sure, and we got paid for that one, but…”

“Still can’t believe we charged ‘em,” Kaylee muttered. 

“At a discount, honey,” Zoe pointed out. “Can’t eat friendship. They were the ones who offered to transfer the credits.”

“As for this detour, Jayne, you’re missing the part where _The Scythian_ gave us a catalyzer for free and saved all our lives, then let you off with nothing more than a prank everyone but you found hilarious when you killed one of them in a tussle,” Mal said. Maybe it was hypocritical of him to not include his own shooting of Seb in that tally, but in his mind, his motivation had been much better than Jayne’s. 

Jayne picked at his fingernails in a disgruntled and less-than-appealing manner. “Vera don’t work right no more.”

“Relax, if it turns out it was a false alarm, we’ll just hang out with my old buddy a bit and then refuel,” Wash said cheerfully. But then his eyes widened and he started swearing instead. 

The ion cloud had messed with their sensors until this moment. Now it was clear that an Alliance warship was also headed towards the satellite. One with plenty of guns.

“Jayne, Kaylee, go strap in,” Mal said. To Jayne’s credit, the man would hold Kaylee’s safety higher than his own. Mal could only hope that they had managed it before the warship started shooting at them. 

An eerie calm settled over Wash as the first blasts came their way. “Don’t worry. I’m a leaf on the wind.”

“...What does that mean?” Mal asked, his stoic Captainly-ness slipping a mite.

Wash narrowed his eyes, loosened his posture, and made _Serenity_ dance all the way down. A thing of beauty and grace. They only got hit once, just winged really, enough to send her into a crash that wasn’t pretty but they could salvage. 

When they came to a stop, Wash looked at Mal with a smile of triumph. “I’m a leaf on the wind. Watch how I - URGH!”

The warship had landed right behind them, and was shooting at the parking garage in such a way that a chunk of concrete came loose and smashed through the window, hitting Wash with rubble and glass. Zoe sprang to his side. “Baby? Baby, we gotta go, c’mon!”

Wash opened his eyes. He was bleeding from a dozen places, but his head was intact and he seemed alert. “Soar. Was gonna say soar. How rude.”

“ _Gankuai!_ Mal helped Zoe get Wash free and they both supported him on their way out. Kaylee had the presence of mind to grab a med kit, Jayne just a few guns and reserve ammo. They made their way into the complex double time. Doors were locked, but Wash was an authorized guest and his palm print and retinal scan got them in the front way.

“So glad you guys are here! I’m in the panic room and I’m not coming out,” Mr. Universe said over the speakers once they’d entered the minimal, gunmetal-gray hall. He told them where it was and begged them to hurry. 

That’s how they ended up hunkered in a small chamber with its own power source, a single bed, a toilet and shower, plenty of nonperishable food and water, and two monitors: one showing security feeds from different parts of the complex, and the other connected to the Cortex. Wash ended up on the bed with Zoe doing all the first aid she could. It was a awkward being around Mr. Universe at the moment, because he hated physical contact like it was going to give him a rash, and there wasn’t much space to maneuver. His robot wife was cuddling him and running her fingers through his hair as he typed frantically. 

“You gonna make it, Wash?” Mr. Universe asked, turning to look at him for a moment but then squeezing his eyes shut like he couldn’t bear it.

“I don’t see any lights that want me running towards them, at least,” Wash said, then hissed as Zoe dabbed more antiseptic on a wound. “Sorry about bleeding on your blankets. We should have kept Jing Hua with us. General practitioner, you know? We dropped her off on the planet on our way here.”

Zoe hushed him. “Stop talking, rest.”

“Better yet, we should have kept Simon with us,” Kaylee said. Since Zoe was busy playing medic, Kaylee was holding Wash’s hand. They were each other’s best just-friends on the ship, after all. Especially with Inara gone. (Mal shut off that line of thought with a quickness.)

“River would have been handy too.” Jayne saw everyone but Mr. Universe (who’d gone back to his screens) staring at him. “What? I can appreciate that.”

“They’re smashing my equipment,” Mr. Universe said sadly, pointing at the security feed. Soldiers were wrecking every machine they could find with guns and batons. “Short while before you showed up, Ms. Zhang Jing Mei said to stand by for a wave from her or one of the other _Scythian_ crew soon. Guess the military isn’t a fan of whatever she’s sending.”

“Is that all your equipment?” Mal asked. 

“I have a backup unit. Bottom of the complex, right over the generator. Hard to get to. I know they’ll miss it. I don’t see the point in venturing out to find it, though, without something special to broadcast. I say we hunker down and hope they miss us.” He clicked his remote to make his love bot lean in such a way that he could put his head on her shoulder. 

“Wish I’d brought some ruttin’ grenades. I don’t like waiting like rabbits in a hole,” Jayne said. 

“I don’t think any of us are keen on it.” There wasn’t a spare chair, so Mal leaned against the wall to wait. He had to believe that this was all for some good reason. He had to. Otherwise he’d be crushed under the thought of dooming his crew. Zoe was whispering to Wash, comforting him, but the words were too soft to make out without straining. That wasn’t Mal’s place. 

Eventually, Mr. Universe broke the near silence. “Message from Jing Mei incoming. Note says it’s a holo file, very important, but very disturbing.”

“Thi’ the painkillers’re kickin’ in, shiny,” Wash slurred, then passed out. He didn’t seem to be bleeding anymore, and Zoe looked stressed but not murderous, so Mal figured he wasn’t on the brink of death at least. 

“Anyone object to me playing it?” Mr. Universe asked. 

“I wanna see what all this is for,” Jayne said.

Kaylee sighed. “Life she lives, I’m frettin’ about what Jing Mei considers ‘disturbing’, but not knowing is worse.”

Zoe grunted affirmatively, so Mal said, “Go ahead.”

Turns out, Kaylee was right about Jing Mei’s standards for disturbing. The news that the Alliance was responsible for the accidental death of ten million people, in such a horrifying way, was one thing. One travesty of a thing. Their creation of Reavers was an even worse thing. As for the Reaver appearing and attacking the woman - Jayne, of all people, was the one who demanded the recording be turned off. What disturbed Mal the most, though, was that this had been swept under the rug for so long. 

Too long. 

He said as much, with a much steadier voice than he felt, and concluded with, “You can’t broadwave the word on Miranda from here, right? It’s the backup unit or nothing?”

Mr. Universe still looked like he’d been smacked with a plank. To be fair, so did Jayne, while Kaylee was tearful and Zoe’s face had turned to stone. “That’s right. You want to go out there?” 

“Don’t want to, but I will.” He was a hair’s breadth from asking his trusted first mate to come with him, but he couldn’t bear to ask her to leave Wash in his condition. “Zoe, I’m trusting you to look after the rest. Jayne, I need backup. You good for it?”

It looked like Jayne was going to say no. Whatever fondness Jayne might have for his family and someone endlessly endearing like lil’ Kaylee, he wasn’t exactly the selfless type, not keen to lay down his life for a cause.

But Jayne took a sip of water, cleared his throat, and replied, “Shepherd Book said to me once, ‘If you can’t do something smart, do something right.’”

Mr. Universe tapped a few buttons on his remote control and made his robot get to her feet. “Take her. She knows a shortcut, and I can transfer her protective protocols to apply to Mal.”

“Just Mal?” Jayne asked.

Mr. Universe shrugged. “Only one person at a time, sorry. It’s okay if this chassis gets banged up. I back up her personality and memories weekly and can reupload after fixing her. Let me show you the basic controls.”

It was a mite unsettling to be following a love bot in a pretty dress through a set of hidden doors, but Mal was extremely grateful when they emerged into a hallway and she took a bullet for him. “I am damaged but functional,” she said calmly, as if the hole in her chest and the sparks coming from it were nothing of concern, and kept going. Mal and Jayne took advantage of surprise and picked off the few enemies they ran into along the way, picking up speed as they went. 

The backup unit was an island of tech over an intimidating pit full of whirling metal beams powering the station. The bot found a panel and pulled a lever that made a narrow platform appear as a bridge, but it wasn’t much better.

Jayne, who had just shot and killed several heavily armed men, was cringing as he looked down at the spinning metal. Mal thought about Jayne chucking his partner in crime out of a shuttle to prevent crashing. He thought about Jayne’s fear of getting spaced. How the few roles he seriously complained about were the ones that involved him dangling or being lowered down. The next words didn’t surprise him. “Uh, Mal, I’m, uh, I ain’t great with heights if I ain’t got some kinda harness.”

Mal restrained himself from rolling his eyes. Would have been cruel under the circumstances. “Cover me, then.”

As Mal was making his way towards the platform, he heard shouting and gunshots, but he couldn’t turn around without risking falling off. Weren’t any safety railings, after all. Once he had reached the broadwave unit, he looked at Jayne hiding behind some crates and shooting at two men in suits. Mal had to focus on getting the job done, getting the word out, in case this was a journey with no return destination for him and Jayne. Not a bad way to go. If Zoe, Wash, and Kaylee made it out, his regrets weren’t heavier than he was willing to shoulder.

When he returned to Jayne’s side, though, Jayne was fine. The two suits he’d been shooting at lay dead. One had a weird metal stick in one of his gloved hands. Blue gloves. Something tugged at Mal’s memory. 

“Didn’t think they were a threat at first, but I remembered River harping on about “hands of blue”,” Jayne muttered. “These days, I know anything that scares _her_ is scary enough to put down on sight. Did you get the word out?”

“I did, but I can’t tell you where we’re going from here.” Mal felt very tired.

To their shock, though, the next soldier they ran into had a commander’s stripes and had stowed all her weapons with the safeties obviously on. Her people had done the same. “Captain Reynolds, we’ve been told to stand down and allow you to leave.”

“Why?” he asked, narrowing his eyes. 

“I was told that _The Scythian_ can give you some answers. That is all.” She gave him a curt but polite nod. 

****

The last time Zhang Jing Mei had ever felt so wrung out, it had been the day she’d learned that _Baba_ wasn’t coming back from the war. Sure, she and her older sister had been twentysomethings at Beaumonde’s top tier Mech Tech and Medicad schools by then, with a brother in his late teens, but that didn’t mean they hadn’t needed their father. Their grandmother had lectured him for joining the Independents, but he’d believed so heavily in the cause, he’d believed it was the right thing to do...

Now her similarly noble/stupid ancestor was lying on the floor, his head cradled in Jing Mei’s lap as Joe gave first aid to the various bleeding wounds with the kit she’d stashed in her backpack. She’d intended those things for herself, yet here she was, only a few bruises on her, while an immortal lay dying. She held it together until she realized that one of his hands was still injured from punching the holo player downstairs. This meant he'd gone into this fight secretly knowing that he could die from it.

Seb had some awareness of what was going on, but he seemed too far gone to speak. His fingers were only loosely draped around hers. His breathing was labored.

“I’m blood type O-positive, which isn’t as universal as O-negative but is still pretty good,” Jing Mei told Joe through the lump in her throat. “Do you know his blood type? He needs more blood. I bet you guys can’t give blood, bet you heal around the needle before more than a tiny bit gets out or something. This is so much blood.”

“I think Simon can determine his blood type near-instantaneously,” Joe soothed.

A number of things happened in quick succession, and a number of good facts emerged. The Operative had gone through a dramatic change of heart that River confirmed to be genuine. There was a fully equipped surgical theater downstairs, which made sense when you thought about how this place was meant for experimenting on Reavers, but Jing Mei preferred not to think about the details. River and Nile - mostly River, as apparently Nile had ended up focusing on Simon because it seemed unwise to get in River’s way - had killed all the Reavers. Simon was fine and a stretcher had been supplied and he was going to do surgery right away, with Joe assisting. Simon said Seb’s chances were “fairly optimistic”.

But Jing Mei cried when they took him away, even as she took her rolled-up clean shirt out of her bag to give to River and pressed nutrition bars into the hands of all the immortals. They frequently came back to the ship so hungry from healing. She cried in Nile’s arms when she arrived, then cried in Nicky’s arms after Joe and Nicky had their relieved kisses with each other. Nile wasn’t pushing Jing Mei away or anything, she needed to hash out reparations with the Operative, and she needed River as a lie detector. 

Nicky gave good hugs. That helped a tiny bit. When it was confirmed that Jing Mei’s blood would be safe to donate to Seb, Nicky was the one who handled it. The technology for that specific procedure wasn’t too different from the most recent time _he_ had been trained, plus he'd done it a few times during the war. 

She spilled the whole story out to Nicky as he drew her blood, less coherently than she had to Seb. He listened but didn’t comment until he was putting a bandage on her and she was eating the candy bar she’d also brought. 

“I think it is destiny of another kind, that you are able to give his blood back to him,” Nicky said, and brushed a loose lock of hair out of her eyes to tuck behind her ear. “I think it’s a sign that a circuit has been complete and all is meant to be well.”

“I hope so,” Jing Mei mumbled, feeling dizzy for more than one reason. 

“I heard mention of a guard’s rest station, where there are cots for napping during their breaks. Joe will join when finished, but I rest better when I’m not the only one in the room.” He gave her a slight smile and held out her hand. “Join me?”

****

When Joe reached the breakroom, only a single dim lamp was on. The two cots had been pushed together. Nicky was sleeping near the wall with his back to it, an obvious gap left for Joe. He was holding River, also asleep, tucked under one of his arms while she lay tightly curled on her side. Beside her, Jing Mei was leaning against the wall with her legs stretched out, poking at her tablet. Jing Mei’s eyes were still red as she met Joe’s.

“He’ll live,” Joe said. Simon’s prognosis was for a long recovery and some reduction of mobility, but she didn’t need to hear that right now. “It’ll be at least three hours before he wakes, and Nile’s with him.”

She took a deep breath. “Thank you for telling me. I think you guys still need someone to keep watch while I wait, though. If you and Nicky want to talk privately, you know plenty of languages I don’t.”

“Are you sure? You deserve rest too.”

“I haven’t died at _all_ today,” she quipped, and squeezed his shoulder. 

Nicky lifted his head and asked in their private blend of languages nostalgic to them but dead to others: “He’ll live?”

“Within the limitations of mortality,” Joe replied quietly

“River chose to take a sedative, so she is unlikely to wake if we don’t raise our voices,” Nicky, shifting to give Joe space while moving her as little as possible. Nicky had held Nile in a similar, chaste configuration before, on nights too cold or distressing to sleep otherwise, with Seb lying on his back on her other side. “She’d never killed more than three people in a short time before, or been so afraid for her brother.”

“One's first true battle is hard on anyone, especially someone so young. I’m glad she trusts you enough to be vulnerable.” Joe settled into his slot, wrapping himself as tightly and thoroughly around his heart and soul as he could. He pressed a kiss to the back of Nicky’s neck. Only after holding him properly could Joe banish the thoughts of Reavers getting their hands on Nicky, brutally raping him, tearing at his flesh and eating it, and reveling in his screams as they wrenched his body and mind into pieces. Then realizing that they could do it over and over again. 

“You’re thinking dark thoughts, _ya shams_ ,” Nicky sighed, even as his limbs relaxed into contentment. 

“The Operative framed it as my choice whether those creatures would be sent after you, _ya amar_. I don’t know what I would have done if our little brother hadn’t shot me and taken the drive away for being indecisive.”

Nicky snorted. “His fighting style has always been ‘whatever works.’”

“He’s unlikely to fight again.”

“Not with his body, but there are other ways to fight.”

“Good point, my philosopher.”

“We will reassure him of our love when Nile and Jing Mei are finished greeting him, my poet,” Nicky said. “Our friends on _Serenity_ are well, by the way. Jing Mei spoke to them. They were very confused about our end of things.”

“To be fair, so was I.” They shared a soft chuckle. All Joe’s family was alive and safe. Losing _the Scythian_ was a sad but minor setback by comparison.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Gankuai!_ \- Mandarin, "Hurry!"
> 
>  _ya shams_ \- Arabic, "my sun"
> 
>  _ya amar_ \- Arabic, "my moon"


	9. Chapter 9

_Five months later…_

“You’re up late, Ian,” Jing Hua said, with a tone of mild concern mixed with mild reproach. She looked a lot like Jing Mei, except for a slimmer facial structure and an asymmetrical bob haircut. Unlike her mechanic/hacker sister, Jing Hua also wore makeup on a regular basis. Today’s lipstick hue was peach. “I have to go to work soon.”

On some symbolic level, “Seb” had died protecting one of his own descendants from one of James Copley’s. Ian Shoemaker - a pun based on the Mandarin word for book being “shu” - was a mortal man, a veteran of the Unification War who was living with extended family while recovering from terrible injuries. He was also a useful legal identity now that his old ones had all been compromised. Jing Hua’s partner, Felicity Li, was mixed-race, so it was easy to sell the explanation that Ian was one of Felicity’s distant maternal relatives instead of being one of Jing Hua’s distant paternal relatives. _Extremely_ distant. There were no records to dispute this. Felicity had such a deep distrust of the Alliance after her time as a POW that she wasn’t even comfortable being on their books as officially married, though she and Jing Hua had done a more traditional ceremony in beautiful red dresses soon after the Zhangs had relocated here. Ian had been too weak to attend, but they’d shown him videos. 

Jing Hua and Felicity were the only people in the household who knew the true story of Ian’s origins. It was best to keep the information to as few people as possible for the safety of the remaining immortals. Of course, Jing Hua needed the information to handle a patient totally out of practice being mortal. Meanwhile, Felicity deserved to know what was going on in her own home, which she had generously opened up to the entire Zhang family now that they had reason to fear being easy pickings for the Alliance again. A very rural ranch in a Browncoat-sympathizing area was as safe as they could be while not moving to a different planet. (Jing Mei’s father was the one who’d told his children fanciful stories about an immortal ancestor, and they would have probably told him if he was still around.)

“I’m sorry for the inconvenience,” Ian said, adjusting the grip on his beautifully carved wooden cane. Jing Mei’s grandmother Zhiyu had presented him with it after he graduated from crutches. 

“I still have time for your check-up, Greatest Grandpa, as long as you aren’t cagey about your real symptoms. Are you late because you had bad dreams?” She motioned for him to take a seat in the desk chair. Felicity had a cluttered home office that the children weren’t allowed into, so it was a good place for frank discussions about his health. The homey framed artwork by the couple’s nephew and niece and the window that looked out on a vegetable garden helped create a very different ambiance from a hospital, too. Or a lab. 

Ian rolled up his sleeve and inserted his arm into the portable blood pressure monitor Jing Hua placed on the desk. While Jing Hua was a general practitioner, she had some trauma counseling and had become a useful confidante. “I dreamed about Quynh drowning me over and over. Chaining me up and holding me down. Sometimes in the ocean, sometimes in a bathtub, sometimes in a vat of whiskey. I dreamed of her drowning for so long, you know, she continues to get mixed up in my dreams even though she’s gone. Even though we eventually made up and became family.”

“She chose to stay on Earth-That-Was, right?” She moved onto inspecting the scarring, but healing tissue where he’d taken two laser burns and three major sword slashes or stabs. They’d had a scare when he’d contracted an antibiotic-resistant infection a few days into his healing process, hence her insistence on checking up on him every day now. 

“Mm. We...we tried to persuade her, but she said she’d spent centuries in a metal box and didn’t want to spend at least a century in another. We would have tried harder to persuade her if she hadn’t then gotten an accidental bruise that didn’t heal right away. Then we accepted her wish to spend her remaining mortal years helping the people who didn’t make it onto the ships. There were a lot more people left behind than your history books tell you.” _Someone must tend Andromache’s grave,_ she’d said. He wasn’t in the mood to repeat that part.

Jing Hua grimaced. “I’m not surprised. The Alliance likes to pretend they were noble from the start. Do you want me to prescribe you another course of sleeping pills?”

“Not right now, thank you. Tell me about the party preparations.” While he’d waved River and Simon on _Serenity_ and heard from the immortals and Jing Mei a few times in the past months, this would be the first time he’d seen any of them since he’d been smuggled to Beaumonde. It was nice being excited about something. 

Jing Hua smiled. “Mudan really wants you to look after the kids so she can focus on helping with the feast. But only after you’ve had some breakfast.”

****

Jing Mei’s little brother Heng and his wife Mudan were expecting another child, so Ian had taken to babysitting their twin son and daughter frequently so that Mudan could get some rest. Heng had switched from working as an accountant for a major company to working as an accountant for the small local bank, which was the only one for many miles and therefore could result in long hours. 

Ian didn’t mind at all. Though Jing Mei’s father’s stories, and those of his father before him, hadn’t included specific information about which of Sebastien Le Livre’s sons they were descended from, only Jean-Pierre had lived long enough and sired enough children for him to be a likely candidate. It didn’t matter that they thought of themselves as more Chinese than European, that they had black hair when Jean-Pierre’s had been blond, that they had been born centuries after the concept of _France_ had practically become a myth. Ian couldn’t help but hear traces of Jean-Pierre when Ming and Shen laughed, or see the same wonder in their eyes when he told them stories. 

To get them out of the other adults’ hair, he suggested that they go pet the rabbits, then head out for a bike ride together and have tea and sandwiches where the spaceships would land. The children squealed with delight and ran to their tricycles. He made sure to fasten their helmets carefully. Life was so much more precious when it was this fragile. 

The Li ranch’s bread and butter was the fleeces of their hybrid Angora sheep, but there was a side business involving a little shack full of extraordinarily soft and white angora rabbits whose fur could be spun into premium yarn. When Ian had become strong enough to do some light chores, Felicity had made him Assistant Rabbit Keeper and pretended that it wasn’t an excuse to cheer him up. The children enjoyed the visit, but Ming, who was as ship-crazy as her aunt, soon got impatient and wanted to go to the landing field.

They waved at Felicity and one of the hired hands as they cycled past a paddock full of sheep being rounded up by what resembled an Australian shepherd dog. So odd to think that Australia, at least as he knew it, was no more. Perhaps it was a wasteland, or perhaps life had found a way to triumph in the absence of human folly and reclaimed the continent. 

“I wanna know more about the knight who fought the windmills,” Shen demanded, pulling up grass with his chubby little hands as Ian pulled the picnic cloth and refreshments from his rucksack. On the way here, he’d strapped his cane to his hip much the way Nicky wore his longsword to battle. Now he lay it on the gingham and carefully arranged himself in a cross-legged position. They were safely away from the white markings that delineated the makeshift landing pad. Usually it was for supply and livestock transport copters, but there was just enough space to fit two proper ships. 

“I want to hear a real story about Na-pol-lon,” Ming argued, digging through the bag to find the treats she wanted. He managed to get them both settled on either side of him, his arm around each waist. 

“How about I tell you a story about a daring rescue in a place called Zimbabwe?” Ian asked. He was feeling nostalgic, and he’d already thought about how to make that particular mission sound more kid-friendly and not reveal too much information, such as the fact that it was autobiographical. He didn’t mind the thought of the kids knowing the truth one day, but they were too young to be trusted not to blab once they started school next year. Their dad had heard the family legend too, but unlike Jing Mei, he hadn’t believed in it. Jing Hua had been skeptical but supportive of Jing Mei’s obsession. 

“A pretend place or an Earth-That-Was place?” Shen asked, now making the grass blades rain back down on the ground. “It sounds like a pretend place.”

“It was a very real place.”

He’d barely gotten to a bowdlerized version of the part where Andy was somehow dual wielding pistols while on horseback when Ming pointed and shrieked at an approaching Firefly. He had to restrain her from running over and getting a closer look as it touched down. 

To Seb’s surprise, the ship wasn’t _Serenity_ at all. He felt a lump in his throat when he saw that its exterior had been painted with a stylized labrys and the name _Andromache_.

****

At first, Simon had been upset that River was immortal, even if that may have seemed counterintuitive for a brother who would have given up his life for his sister without question. It raised the question of how the Academy had discovered this in the first place. It opened up horrifying possibilities of what kinds of suffering River could undergo, or had already undergone. It increased the size of the target on her back. Worst of all, it made her so much more unlike the River he’d once known, creating a divide between them he didn’t know could ever be crossed.

During these five months on _Serenity_ , staying safely on the move while the immortals were acquiring and equipping their new ship, the distress had lessened. Now that River was eighteen and it didn’t feel as wrong to let her separate from her de facto guardian, Simon was more prepared to let her go. And now that Wash’s near-death experience emphasized how much _Serenity_ needed Simon, and Simon’s relationship with Kaylee continued to grow, Simon was more convinced that he needed to stay.

River promised that she’d keep in touch and find as many opportunities to visit as possible. Mal and Nile had already expressed interest in collaborating, even if it was as simple as passing intel along to each other. River’s mind would be less overwhelmed on _Andromache_ , and the crew of that ship was better equipped to protect her from capture. She also needed more mentorship to become the new River, rather than Simon trying to cram her back into the shape of the River he’d known. 

Still, he held her very tightly as _Serenity_ made landfall on the ranch. There would be another chance to say goodbye before she left on the other ship, but this would be the last time they would be on this ship together for the foreseeable future.

“You need to live your own life too,” River said, voice muffled as she buried his face in his shoulder. “Promise.”

“I promise.”

“I’ll look after him for you, no need to fret,” Kaylee said, slipping one hand into Simon’s and one into River’s as they walked out into the sunlight. 

****

The party was for River’s birthday, even if it was ten days late to accommodate everyone’s schedules. Also to celebrate Sebastien-Booker-Seb-Ian’s recovery. Also to celebrate the ship replacing _The Scythian_. Also to be an excuse for a reunion. 

There was good food, sheepdogs to play with and angora rabbits to pet, a bonfire after dark, and lots of new clothes and books everyone had pitched in to buy for her. Everyone who had centuries’ worth of memories had too much white noise in their minds for River to Read anything by accident, but she caught Jing Mei thinking about the shiny weapons and gadgets they were going to give River after takeoff. 

The biggest gift of all was when Nile told her, “The shuttles are named after Lykon and Quynh. After, you know, _that guy_ promised to get us a replacement ship, we narrowed it down to a few classes that would suit us. A Firefly was one of them. We hoped it would make you feel more at home.”

“It already does,” River said, feeling warm inside. 

****

When sending Ian away to be cared for, Nile, Joe, and Nicky had made it clear that they would love to have him back as a pilot for as long as he wanted. No more fighting, staying safe on the ship and hanging out with Jing Mei, which did appeal to him. Even as the party continued on, Ian still hadn’t fully made up his mind about whether he’d leave with them after the whole crew had rested and resupplied. He’d packed days ago and been living out of his suitcase since, and the children knew he might have to leave “on business”, like their father sometimes did. Soon they would be starting first grade and be busy at school for more hours a day, too. There would be time to say proper goodbyes before _Andromache_ would break atmo. 

He could visit, and he could come back for good when he was ready to retire from adventure. If he wanted. He wasn't sure what he wanted.

But River said to him, in that soft, earnest way of hers, “I’ve already learned a bit about how to be a pilot. Joe can teach me how to see past the blood and to the beauty. Nicky can teach me to find peace and purpose. Nile can teach me how to be strong-willed but stay compassionate. Jing Mei can teach me how to love two families. You’re the only one who can…”

“Who can what?”

She put a hand on his shoulder. “You're the only one who can teach me how to be broken but keep going.”

He raised his eyebrows and gripped his cane a little harder. “It took me a long time to learn that, you know. Far longer than it should have.”

River laughed, and he felt transported back in time to the moment he told Nile she’d be great for the team. He knew then that his time out in the stars wasn’t quite over yet. “It’s all right. I’m a genius.”


End file.
